ill 


II I 


i 


The 

Musical  Education 
of  the  Child 


HI 


tewart  Macpherso 


I 


i 


i 


THE 

MUSICAL  EDUCATION 
OF  THE  CHILD 

SOME  THOUGHTS  AND  SUGGESTIONS 

FOR  TEACHERS.  PARENTS 

AND  SCHOOLS 


BY 


STEWART  MACPHERSON 

Fellow  and  Professor,  Royal  Academy  of  Music,  London; 

Author  of"  Practical  Harmony,"  "Form  in  Music," 

"  Music  and  its  Appreciation,"  etc. 


BOSTON,    MASSACHUSETTS 

THE  BOSTON  MUSIC  COMPANY 

LONDON:  JOSEPH   WILLIAMS.    LIMITED 


Educ- 
Psych 


Copyright,  1916,  by  JOSEPH  WILLIAMS,  Ltd. 


Proprietors  for  U.  S.  A.  THE  BOSTON  Music  Co. 

B.    M.   CO.      5070 


PREFACE 

THE  following  pages  represent  in  the  main  the  substance  of 
various  lectures,  addresses  and  articles  delivered  or  written 
during  the  last  few  years,  on  certain  aspects  of  the  musical 
education  of  the  young.  In  preparing  them  for  issue  in  their 
present  form,  I  have  thought  it  best  to  preserve  the  informal 
style  which  best  fitted  the  conditions  under  which  they  were 
originally  presented.  I  quite  realize  that  if  one  had  intended 
in  the  first  place  to  set  forth,  in  book  form,  the  thoughts 
herein  contained,  they  would  often  have  been  expressed  some- 
what differently. 

Feeling,  however,  that  to  alter  their  manner  would  tend  in 
all  probability  to  destroy  whatever  directness  they  might  pos- 
sess, I  have  ventured  to  leave  them  virtually  as  they  first 
appeared,  merely  adding  a  few  fresh  points  which  seemed  to 
drive  home  more  completely  the  arguments  advanced.  It  will 
doubtless  be  noticed  that  some  overlapping  of  idea  occurs 
from  time  to  time  in  the  course  of  these  essays,  and  that  a 
topic  developed  in  one  is  referred  to,  possibly  at  some  length, 
in  another. 

This  has  been  inevitable  owing  to  the  fact  that  more  than 
once  it  has  been  necessary  to  approach  the  same  subject  from 
different  sides,  and  in  relation  to  circumstances  which  in  their 
nature  vary  considerably. 

I  can  only  hope  that  any  apparent  verbal  redundancy  may  be 
compensated  for  by  additional  clearness,  and  by  the  emphasis 
thus  laid  upon  certain  matters  of  fundamental  importance. 

THE   AUTHOR 
LONDON,  1915 


358.6  * 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 

PACK 

PREFACE  iii 


PART   ONE 

SOME   AIMS    IN    MODERN    MUSICAL   EDUCATION 

THE     PART     OF     THE     EDUCATIONIST,     THE     TEACHER    AND     THE 

PARENT — Music  IN  SCHOOL  LIFE;  ITS  VALUE — PRACTICAL  PROB- 
LEMS      1 

PART   TWO 

APPRECIATIVE   MUSIC    STUDY:   ITS    MEANING   AND 
ITS   VALUE 

I.  SUGGESTIONS  FOR  A  COURSE  OF  CLASS- WORK  IN  SCHOOLS  — 
AURAL    TRAINING  —  THE    CHORAL    CLASS  —  CORRELATION    WITH 
INSTRUMENTAL  WORK 17 

II.  THE    AWAKENING  OF   AN    INTELLIGENT   APPRECIATION   OF 
MUSIC  —  THE  TEACHER'S  PART 35 

PART   THREE 

THE   MUSIC-TEACHER:    HIS   AIMS    AND    IDEALS 

THE  TEACHER  OF  TO-DAY:  His  POSITION  AND  HIS  RESPONSI- 
BILITY—  THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE  "AVERAGE"  PUPIL  — 
THE  CULTIVATION  OF  THE  AURAL  AND  CREATIVE  FACULTIES  — 
THE  TEACHING  OF  HARMONY  —  THE  TRAINING  OF  THE  TEACHER 
—  CLASS  TEACHING  —  PERSONALITY  —  NEED  OF  A  WIDE  OUTLOOK 
AND  BROAD  SYMPATHIES  53 


PART   ONE 
SOME  AIMS  IN  MODERN  MUSICAL  EDUCATION 

"  The  whole  development  of  true  art  is  devised  to 
engage  more  and  more  of  the  finer  mental  qualities 
....  and  one  of  its  greatest  joys  is  to  find  that  it  helps 
the  imperfectly  provided  mind  to  attain  fuller  measure 
of  the  finer  qualities."  g,R  HUBERT  PARRY 

WE  hear  to-day  much  talk  about  the  "  educational  ladder," 
and  the  necessity  of  setting  up  some  sort  of  machinery  by 
which  an  intelligent  relationship  may  be  made  to  subsist 
between  the  various  stages  in  the  educational  process.  The 
cry  is  all  for  a  clear  road  from  Primary  School  to  University. 
Whether  we  all  agree,  or  not,  with  the  desirability  of 
encouraging  what,  on  the  face  of  it,  seems  in  the  majority 
of  instances  to  be  of  very  doubtful  value  —  namely,  the  hope 
of  University  success  in  the  minds  of  those  who,  in  the  main, 
are  as  little  likely  to  reach  that  goal  as  to  reach  the  moon  — 
we  must  all  heartily  endorse  the  axiom  that  every  step  in 
true  education  should  bear  some  conscious  relation  to  every 
other  step,  and  be  pursued  with  some  definite  end  in  view. 
In  other  words,  any  part  of  a  child's  education  that  is  under- 
taken without  some  distinct  object  —  not  necessarily,  let  us 
hasten  to  add,  a  utilitarian  object  —  is  practically  wasted 
energy,  for  it  inevitably  leads  to  a  cul-de-sac  no  less  disastrous 
in  its  own  way  than  the  many  "  blind-alley  "  occupations 
which  are  so  familiar  a  phenomenon  in  modern  life. 

If  we  apply  this  thought  to  the  teaching  and  learning  of 
music,1  how  does  it  all  work  out?  What  is  the  net  result 
of  all  the  vast  amount  of  effort  —  honest,  dogged,  painstak- 
ing effort  —  that  has  been  and  is  being  expended  throughout 
the  land  in  connection  with  the  child's  lessons  in  music? 
For  that  the  majority  of  music-teachers  are  some  of  the  most 

I  am  referring  exclusively  to  the  general  musical  upbringing  of  the 
child,  and  am  leaving  out  of  consideration  specialized  music-study  as 
pursued  at  our  great  musical  institutions. 


2        THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF   THE   CHILD 

hard- worked  and  hard-working  members  of  the  community  — 
men  and  women  who  bring  to  bear  upon  their  work  a  degree 
of  zeal,  energy  and  patience  which  those  in  many  another  and 
better-paid  walk  of  life  might  envy  —  is  in  reality  a  com- 
monplace of  experience,  a  truism  which  few  will  care  to  deny. 

And  yet  have  we  not  at  times  an  uneasy  consciousness 
that  all  has  not  been  well,  that  much  of  this  willing  energy 
somehow  tends  to  get  lost  in  transit,  and  that  over  and  over 
again  the  spectre  of  the  "  blind  alley  "  rears  its  unhappy 
form  to  dishearten  and  depress  those  who  are  giving  so 
largely  in  time  and  labor  to  the  task  of  teaching  ? 

Many  a  teacher,  of  the  right  kind,  has  had  forced  upon 

him  in  his  moments  of  reflection,  the  somewhat  arresting 

thought,  "  What  is  it  all  to  lead  to?     Why 

6-  TS  i.  *  am  I  teaching  this  child,  who  really  has 
music:  To  what  ,.  ,  '  .  «  '  ,  * 

is  it  to  lead?  little  or  no  aptitude,  to  play  the  piano? 

Why  are  her  parents  desirous  that  she  should 
learn  ?  What  is  the  object  of  it  all  ?  Is  it  only  that  after 
years  of  struggling  she  may  be  able  to  play,  more  or  less 
badly,  some  sentimental  '  Chant  sans  Paroles/  or  some 
none  too  meritorious  '  Valse  de  Salon,'  to  a  circle  of 
acquaintances  who,  if  the  truth  were  known,  would  often 
much  rather  that  she  didn't?  "  And  too  often  the  answer 
to  such  reflections  is  of  a  kind  which  makes  the  earnest 
teacher  wonder  greatly  whether  such  work  is  really  worth 
doing,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  when  the  labor  has  been  ex- 
pended and  the  toll  taken  in  time,  energy  and  patience,  the 
total  impression  on  the  pupil  in  the  end  is  so  miserably  small, 
and  its  connection  with  his  or  her  educational  development  so 
hard  to  seek.  And  thus  he  is  driven  to  the  comfortless  con- 
clusion that  at  best  all  he  does  amounts  just  to  "  something 
between  a  hindrance  and  a  help,"  as  Wordsworth  says. 

Something  has  been  wrong:  What  is  it?  Where  lies 
the  hope  for  better  things  ?  In  what  direction  must  we  seek 
for  the  remedy  ?  First,  it  seems  to  me,  comes  the  need  for  a 
clearer  recognition  on  the  part  of 

I.  The  Educationist, 
H.  The  Parent, 

HI.  The  Music-teacher,  of  the  aim  and  object  of  all 
the  hours  spent  on  this  one  subject  of  music  by  the  majority 
of  pupils  during  school  age. 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF   THE   CHILD        3 

To  take,  then,  the  case  of  the  educationist  (as  in  the  main 
represented  by  the  headmistresses  and  headmasters  through- 
out the  country),  what  is  the  attitude  as-  „„  „ . 

*  -:    - .      /          *    A<  1       p          •    •%    J*16  Educationist 

sumed  by  him  towards  the  study  of  music  ? 

Does  he  see  its  drift  or  its  function  amongst  educational 
activities  ?  This  is  a  very  vital  matter :  many  a  music- 
teacher  has  felt  keenly  the  "  cold  shoulder  "  in  respect  of 
his  subject,  for  he  has  realized  that  at  best  it  was  often  only 
tolerated  as  an  evil  inevitable  in  a  present  imperfect  state 
of  things,  and  that  the  hope  was  even  cherished,  in  some 
instances,  of  its  being  relegated  to  the  scrap-heap  with  the 
advance  of  public  opinion  on  educational  matters!  Is 
it  to  be  wondered  at,  then,  that  in  cases  such  as  these  he 
tends  to  become  detached  from  the  rest  of  the  teaching  staff, 
when  he  feels  that  he  has  so  little  in  common  with  them  in 
the  supreme  task  of  educating  the  child  —  when,  in  truth, 
no  one  ever  dreams  of  imagining  that  he  can  possibly  have 
any  part  or  lot  in  it  ? 

Fortunately  this  condition  of  things  is  becoming  rarer 
every  day,  and  the  educationist  himself  is  beginning  to  realize 
that  the  study  of  music,  on  right  lines,  is  by  no  means  the  least 
valuable  factor  in  modern  education.  And  if  the  form 
which  this  study  has  usually  taken  has  seemed  to  him  to  be 
singularly  unproductive  of  the  very  results  which  he  has 
vaguely  felt  should  be  forthcoming  from  it,  it  may  be  well  to 
point  out  that  the  musician  has  been  also  to  blame  for  having 
been  of  so  little  use  to  the  educationist  in  trying  to  get  matters 
straight.  Too  often  he  has  concerned  himself  little,  and 
sympathized  less,  with  the  broader  views  of  education 
necessary  in  order  to  appraise  the  whole  situation  satis- 
factorily, and  to  arrive  at  a  working  solution  of  the  problem. 
He  has,  in  reality,  regarded  the  child's  music  as  a  fact 
in  isolation,  without  relating  it  in  thought  to  the  many 
other  subjects  which  go  to  form  the  necessary  material 
of  that  child's  whole  mental  development.  Hence,  until 
comparatively  recently,  music  in  the  average  school  has 
represented  little  more  than  an  attempt  —  under  adverse 
conditions  —  to  teach  pupils  to  play;  with  what  results 
all  the  world  knows.  It  has  too  frequently  been  regarded 
as  a  harmless  amusement,  with  little  or  no  educational 
value;  in  other  words,  one  of  the  unconsidered  trifles  of 
life. 


4         THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF   THE   CHILD 

The  times  are  now,  however,  full  of  promise,  and  something 
in  the  nature  of  a  revolution  is  being  created  in  the  attitude 
assumed  towards  the  pursuit  of  the  art  in  our  schools.  But, 
when  all  is  said  and  done,  the  one  thing  necessary  if  we  wish 
to  see  music  "  come  into  its  own,"  is  to  be  perfectly  clear 
in  our  own  minds  where  the  educational  value  of  music 
really  lies,  and  then,  by  reasoned  and  reasonable  argument, 
to  make  it  equally  clear  to  those  responsible  for  the  cur- 
riculum. Of  this  I  shall  have  more  to  say  later  on. 

Now  to  turn  to  the  parent.  Here  is  another  crux. 
Many  a  headmistress  will  be  found  to  tell  you  that  not  a 
The  Parent  ^ew  °^  ^er  cnerished  plans  for  the  educa- 

tional advancement  of  the  children  under 
her  care  have  been  frustrated  by  the  impatience  of  the  parents 
for  visible  results.  They  little  dream  that  the  things  that 
matter  most  are  those  which,  as  a  general  rule,  are  least 
subject  to  this  rough-and-ready  test  of  "  results."  Music 
presents  no  exception  to  the  rule,  and  yet  it  is  no  exaggeration 
to  say  that  this  unreasoning  demand  that  "  Gladys  "  shall  be 
able  to  "  play  something  "  at  the  end  of  (say)  a  term's  work 
is  answerable  for  a  deplorable  set-back  to  all  real  progress 
towards  the  end  which  those  responsible  for  the  child's  work 
probably  have  in  view.  Personally,  I  should  like  to  put 
one  or  two  very  plain  questions  to  every  parent.  They  are 
these :  — 

I.   "  Why  do  you  desire  your  child  to  learn  music?  " 
H.   "  What  is  the  object  of  all  the  hours  she  will  spend 

on  this  one  subject?  " 

HI.  "Is  the  end  to  be  a  species  of  ' genteel  accom- 
plishment,' or  is  it  to  be  a  new  means  of  self- 
expression  for  the  child,  a  new  bracing  of  the 
intelligence,  a  gradual  getting  into  touch  with 
the  achievements  of  great  men  who  have 
chosen  to  use  the  more  subtle  medium  of 
musical  sound  to  express  —  and  often  to 
express  more  wonderfully  —  thoughts  for  which 
others  would  use  the  language  of  words  or  the 
colors  of  the  palette?  " 

I  put  it  that  these  are  questions  that  have  to  be  settled ; 
they  cannot  be  shirked.  Music  either  is  a  subject  of  real 
value  in  the  development  of  the  child,  or  it  is  not.  If  it  is 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF   THE   CHILD        5 

not,  it  is  better  to  "  side-track  "  it  altogether  as  waste  of 
time;  if  it  is,  then  we  must  either  see  clearly  ourselves, 
or  trust  those  responsible  for  the  education  of  the  child 
to  see  for  us,  where  and  how  it  is  valuable,  and  then  allow 
the  proper  steps  to  be  taken  for  it  to  assume  its  rightful 
place  amongst  other  intellectual  activities. 

There  can  be  no  halting  between  two  opinions  if  we  are 
to  see  this  matter  through  to  a  finish. 

When  we  begin  to  consider  the  position  of  the  teacher 
himself,  and  his  attitude  towards  the  whole  question,  we 
find  ourselves  face  to  face  with  another  and  Th  T  h 
totally  distinct  set  of  problems  clamoring 
for  solution.  The  first  of  these  I  have  already  touched 
upon  —  I  mean,  the  importance  of  his  realizing  that  music 
is  only  a  part  of  the  child's  education,  and  that  it  is 
necessary  to  view  it  in  the  light  of  its  relation  to  the  rest 
of  his  studies.  In  this  way,  and  in  this  way  only,  will  the 
music-teacher  be  led  to  think  out  for  himself  the  best 
means  of  presenting  his  subject  for  the  consideration  of 
those  whose  duty  it  is  to  organize  and  direct  the  child's 
work  in  its  totality.  By  so  doing  he  will  inevitably  be 
brought  to  see  that  if  he  is  to  carry  conviction  as  to  the  value 
of  his  subject,  he  must  be  able  to  show  that  it  can  clearly 
add  its  quota  in  the  training  of  the  child's  faculties.  When 
he  has  reached  this  point  in  his  reflections,  it  will,  I  think, 
not  be  long  before  he  is  compelled  to  arraign  before  the  bar 
of  his  own  reason  much,  very  much,  that  has  been  accepted 
without  demur  in  the  past.  He  will  be  driven  to  wonder 
whether,  save  in  comparatively  rare  instances,  the  average 
music-pupil  (by  which  I  mean  to  imply  the  average  pupil 
of  school-age,  taught  in  the  average  way  by  the  average 
teacher)  has  gained  very  much  in  real  love  or  appreciation 
of  music  by  what  she 1  has  been  made  to  do.  He  will  call  to 
mind  —  from  painful  experience,  perhaps  —  that  such  a  pupil 
has  often  been  lamentably  deficient  in  musical  perception ; 
that  her  interest  in  music  has  been  feeble  and  flaccid,  and 
that  in  many  an  instance  its  pursuit  has  been  dropped 
without  a  moment's  regret  so  soon  as  her  days  of  pupilage 
were  over. 

1  I  say  "she"  here,  because  by  far  the  greater  number  of  music- 
pupils  have  been  and  still  are  girls.  My  remarks  would  apply  perhaps 
even  more  forcibly  in  the  case  of  boys. 


6        THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF   THE   CHILD 

Then,  if  he  is  honest  with  himself,  he  will  ask  how  far 
this  has  been  the  pupil's  fault,  and  how  far,  if  at  all,  he 
has  himself  been  responsible  for  the  result.  Has  he  gone 
about  the  business  in  the  right  way?  This  profitable  line 
of  thought  will  perhaps  lead  him  to  see  that,  taking 
the  matter  in  its  broadest  aspect,  the  sound  educational 
principles  that  have  for  long  been  admitted  and  understood 
(even  if  not  always  acted  upon)  in  the  teaching  of  other 
subjects,  have  been  but  very  partially  applied  to  the  teach- 
ing of  music.  Perhaps  one  of  the  reasons  for  this  may 
be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  musician  has,  with  the 
impatience  of  rule  and  method  somewhat  characteristic  of 
the  artistic  temperament,  been  inclined  to  trouble  himself 
little,  and  to  care  less,  about  such  matters  as  the  scientific 
presentation  of  the  facts  he  has  been  called  upon  to  im- 
part to  his  pupils,  or  the  psychology  of  the  "  human " 
boy  or  girl  whom  it  has  been  his  duty  to  teach.  He  has 
far  too  often  regarded  himself  as  the  artist  unfortunately 
compelled,  by  force  of  circumstance,  to  be  a  teacher.  Hence, 
his  method,  if  method  it  could  be  called,  has  been  almost 
wholly  empirical.  Now,  do  not  let  me  give  the  impression 
that  I  consider  the  work  done  under  these  conditions  to  be 
valueless.  Far  from  it :  over  and  over  again  the  strong 
personality  of  a  teacher  has  compensated  to  a  large  extent 
for  lack  of  scientific  order  in  the  presentation  of  his  subject, 
and  the  living,  burning  artistic  impulse,  characteristic  of 
his  own  nature,  has  communicated  itself  in  no  limited  degree 
to  those  under  his  care. 

But  the  more  general  the  teaching  of  our  art  becomes  — 
and  it  is  surely  fairly  general  to-day  —  and  the  greater  the 
army  of  teachers,  the  greater  the  need  of 
sound  Principles  to  form  the  bed-rock  of 
principles  the  WOI%k  to  be  done  throughout  the  length 

and  breadth  of  the  land.  It  stands  to  reason 
that  all  are  not  born  teachers,  nor  even  born  artists,  in  this 
army  of  which  I  speak,  and  it  is  characteristic  of  the  no- 
table awakening  that  has  taken  place  within  the  last  few 
years  in  connection  with  musical  education,  that  scores  of 
teachers  —  even  those  long  in  practice  —  have  made,  and 
are  making,  very  real  sacrifices  to  equip  themselves  more 
thoroughly,  and  to  bring  themselves  into  line  with  the  best 
thought  of  the  day. 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF   THE   CHILD        7 

The  question  of  the  training  of  teachers  is  very  much 
to  the  fore  just  now,  and  is  engaging  the  close  attention 
of  earnest  thinkers  in  all  departments  of  . 

educational  life.  The  community  is  at  last  of  Teachers' 
becoming  alive  to  the  fact  that  teaching 
is  an  art  in  itself,  and  that  it  is  reasonable  to  expect  some 
grasp  of  its  principles  on  the  part  of  those  who  intend  to 
take  upon  themselves  the  important  and  responsible  duty 
of  guiding  the  footsteps  of  the  rising  generation.  But  it 
is  not  only  necessary  that  the  would-be  teacher  should 
be  theoretically  conversant  with  these  principles,  but  that 
he  should  have  opportunities  of  putting  them  to  the  test 
under  the  supervision  of  those  more  experienced  than  him- 
self. What  is  vitally  needed  is,  that  such  a  one  should  be 
enabled  to  study  school-classes  in  actual  operation,  to  gain 
an  insight  into  their  inner  working,  and  to  observe  how  those 
who  are  in  charge  of  such  classes  deal  with  the  difficulties 
which  constantly  arise  in  so  many  changing  forms,  and 
before  which  he  himself  would  probably  have  to  retire 
baffled  and  discouraged.1 

Now  let  us  look  at  a  very  significant  fact.  They  say  that 
"  all  roads  lead  to  Rome  "  ;  well,  to-day,  all  the  best  thought, 
all  the  finest  effort  that  men  are  making 
in  education  —  and  in  other  spheres,  too, 
— lead  in  the  direction  of  the  child,  the  young  child.  It  is 
for  him  that  reforms  are  planned  and  carried  into  execu- 
tion; it  is  for  him  that  philanthropists,  and  even  party- 
politicians,  show  a  solicitude  unparalleled  in  the  history  of 
the  world.  And  it  is  to  the  child  that  the  teacher  (of  any 
subject  whatever)  has  begun  to  see  that  he  must  direct  his 
most  careful  and  earnest  thought.  Why,  then,  is  it  more 
than  ever  important  to  get  the  best  musical  teaching  for  the 
children  ?  For  the  simple  reason  that  the  teacher  is  dealing 
with  the  most  impressionable  years  of  life,  and  that,  if  the 
child's  latent  aural  and  rhythmic  faculties  are  not  wisely 
and  zealously  cultivated  at  an  early  age,  the  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  real  musical  perception  increase  in  geometrical 
progression  as  he  passes  through  adolescence  to  adult  life. 

Now,  I  suspect  that,  long  before  this  moment  in  our  con- 
sideration of  the  subject,  the  objection  may  have  arisen: 

1  I  may  say  here  that  certain  important  schools  are  already  provid- 
ing such  opportunities  as  I  have  been  describing. 


8         THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF   THE   CHILD 

"  Oh,  yes,  this  is  all  very  well,  and  possibly  it's  true,  but 
people  won't  pay  for  good  teaching  in  the  early  stages,  and 
declare  with  irritating  persistence  that  anything  is  good 
enough  for  a  beginner !  "  I  know  it,  and  I  admit  that 
foolish  and  ignorant  ideas  take  a  great  deal  of  exorcising; 
there  are  many  signs,  though,  of  improvement  even  in  this 
direction.  But,  after  all,  even  allowing  for  public  ignorance 
and  indifference,  it  is  the  duty  of  musicians  who  believe 
in  their  subject,  to  be  "instant  in  season  and  out  of  season  " 
in  presenting  it  in  the  right  light,  and  to  band  themselves 
together  for  mutual  support  and  encouragement  in  so 
doing.  So  it  comes  to  pass  that  one  of  the  outstanding 
problems  confronting  us  —  perhaps  the  one  which  is  at  the 
root  of  everything  else,  and  from  which  all  other  problems 
spring  —  is  that  of  a  serious  consideration  of  the  very  simple 
question  I  have  already  put,  viz. :  "  Why  does  a  child  learn 
music?  "  And,  in  connection  with  this,  the  most  hopeful 
of  all  the  signs  of  improvement  which  we  are  witnessing 
to-day  is,  to  my  thinking,  the  fact  that  we  are  at  last  becom- 
ing aware  of  a  new  standard  of  values ;  matters  that  used  to 
be  accorded  a  consideration  out  of  all  relation  to  their  real 
importance  are  now  being  seen  in  a  truer  perspective,  and 
are  yielding  right  of  place  to  others  that  have  hitherto  suf- 
fered a  neglect  as  universal  as  it  has  been  disastrous. 

It  is  beginning  to  be  realized  that  the  study  of  music 
involves  much  more  than  merely  "  learning  to  play,"  and 
M  .  it  is  encouraging  to  note  that  in  many 

class-work  schools,  through  the  agency  of  rhythmic 

movements  in  the  Kindergarten  stage, 
followed  by  Ear-training  and  Appreciation  classes  in  the 
forms  above,  our  children  are  now  beginning  to  be  brought 
into  communion  with  music  as  a  language  to  be  learned,  and 
a  literature  to  be  understood  and  enjoyed,  and  that  their 
whole  nature  is  being  sensitized  to  musical  impressions  in  a 
manner  which  must  be  seen  and  tested,  to  be  believed  by 
those  who  only  know  what  used  to  be  in  their  own  child- 
hood's days. 

Ruskin,  many  years  ago,  claimed  to  show  how  the  elements 
of  drawing  might  be  made  a  factor  in  general  education. 
What  he  claimed  for  his  system  was  that  it  was  "  calculated 
to  teach  refinement  of  perception,  to  train  the  eye  to  close 
observation  of  natural  beauties,  to  help  pupils  to  understand 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF   THE   CHILD        9 

what  masterly  work  meant,  and  to  recognize  it  when  they 
saw  it." 

What  has  largely  been  the  result  of  this?  Simply  that 
drawing  is  now  taught  and  studied  in  our  schools,  not  in 
order  that  pupils  may  take  home  "  pretty  pictures  "  duly 
touched-up  by  the  drawing-master  for  the  admiration  of 
parents  and  friends,  but  just  for  that  very  purpose  of  training 
the  eye  to  perceive.  Is  not,  I  ask,  the  attitude  of  Ruskin 
towards  the  teaching  of  drawing  exactly  what  should  be  the 
attitude  of  thinking  musicians  towards  the  teaching  of  their 
own  art  ?  It  is  desirable  and  necessary  to  train  executants, 
for  many  obvious  reasons ;  but  it  is  of  even  greater  impor- 
tance to  train  the  ear  and  mind  to  become  perceptive,  to  foster 
the  habit  of  "  close  observation  "  of  the  beauties  of  music, 
"  to  understand  what  masterly  work  means,  and  to  recognize 
it  "  when  heard. 

When  —  as  is  possible  in  an  increasing  number  of  schools 
to-day  —  cognizance  is  taken  of  the  entirely  different  attitude 
assumed  by  the  children  towards  music,  as  a  result  of  the 
newer  methods  of  class-work,  it  will  not  be  long  before  it 
is  realized  that  the  bulk  of  them  not  only  may  be,  but  are, 
keenly  interested  in  music  itself,  and  do  listen  to  it  and 
study  it  with  real  appreciation.  Moreover,  . 
it  is  incontestable  that  such  children  _ 

.      percepuon 

receive  through  the  medium  of  their 
aural  training  classes  such  a  foundation  of  real  musical 
perception  that,  when  they  come  to  their  instrumental 
studies  (their  piano,  their  violin  or  what  not)  they  approach 
them,  not,  as  so  often  has  been  the  case  in  the  past,  totally 
unprepared  to  cope  with  the  many  and  great  difficulties 
that  lie  in  the  path  of  all  executive  achievement,  but  with 
their  sense  of  rhythm  and  time  already  largely  developed, 
and  their  hearing  faculties  so  quickened  that  the  printed 
notes  do  actually  convey  some  musical  meaning  to  their 
minds. 

I  would,  therefore,  in  all  earnestness  ask  those  responsible 
for  the  curriculum  in  our  schools  seriously  to  consider  — 
if  they  have  not  already  done  so  —  a  readjustment  of  musical 
activities  such  as  will  afford  every  child  the  opportunity  of 
gaining  those  foundational  musical  experiences  which  are 
his  undoubted  birthright.  I  do  so  with  all  the  greater  con- 
fidence since  it  is  an  acknowledged  fact  that,  when  properly 


io       THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF   THE   CHILD 

carried  out,  class-work  in  music  (having  for  its  object  the 
training  of  the  ear  and  the  development  of  the  child's 
appreciative  powers)  has  most  certainly  the  effect  of  stimu- 
lating the  mental  faculties  of  those  who  take  part  in  it,  and, 
as  a  result,  of  improving  the  standard  of  work  in  other  depart- 
ments.1 The  reason  for  this  assertion  may 
Value  of  verv  pertinently  be  asked,  and  it  seems  to 

hi  music  me  ^at  a  ready  answer  to  the  question  is 

to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  we  are  here 
dealing  with  a  subject  which  is  not  on  the  one  hand  purely 
intellectual,  nor  on  the  other  hand  merely  emotional.  The 
drawing  upon  the  imaginative  side  of  the  pupil's  nature  — 
a  side  often  much  neglected  in  education  —  affords  a  relief 
from  the  constant  demands  made  upon  the  intellect  by 
other  subjects,  such  as  languages  and  mathematics,  while 
the  powers  of  observation  and  of  quick  and  accurate  percep- 
tion are  called  into  play  all  along  the  line.  In  such  an 
institution,  for  example,  as  the  well-conducted  school 
choral-class,  we  have  an  invaluable  agency,  not  only  in  the 
fostering  of  rhythmic,  corporate  action,  but  in  the  formation 
of  character.  Its  influence  is  in  some  degree  comparable 
to  that  of  the  playing-field  in  that,  while  personality  counts, 
it  demands  at  the  same  time  subordination  to  discipline  in 
the  working  out  of  a  common  purpose  and  a  common  ideal. 
In  this  it  is  truly  democratic,  in  the  best  sense  of  that  much 
used,  and  much  abused,  word. 

I  think  it  will  be  conceded,  then,  that  if  all  this  be  the 
case,  the  kind  of  class- work  in  music  which  many  of  us  are 
advocating  in  these  days  has  claims  to  be  considered  an 
educational  subject  of  very  real  value  in  the  all-round 
development  of  our  boys  and  girls;  in  the 
the^tellkence  ^rst  P^ace>  because  in  it  there  is  a  real  call 
upon  the  intelligence  of  the  pupil,  and 
secondly,  because  it  appeals,  not  only  to  one  side  of  his 
nature,  but  to  many.  Is  it  not  true  to  say  that  it  is  largely 
because  people  have  realized  so  imperfectly  that  there  is 
this  call  upon  the  intelligence  in  all  real  listening  that  they 
have  been  content  to  adopt  the  utterly  passive,  fish-like 

1  In  one  particular  school  of  which  I  have  recently  heard,  the  teachers 
of  other  subjects  are  always  anxious  to  have  the  children  immediately 
after  their  music-class,  as  they  invariably  find  that  they  are  then  more 
alert,  responsive  and  alive. 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF   THE   CHILD       11 

attitude  which  is  so  common  in  the  presence  of  music?  Is 
it  not  because  of  their  utter  ignorance  of  the  "  logic  "  (if 
one  may  so  say,  without  being  misunderstood)  of  the  musical 
art,  that  so  many  educated  men  think  of  it  all  as  something 
vague,  intangible,  fluid  and  lacking  in  intellectual  fibre? 
When,  however,  they  are  shown  something  of  the  purpose- 
fulness  of  the  achievements  of  the  best  writers,  their  sur- 
prise is  evident,  and  on  many  an  occasion  I  have  heard 
such  expressions  as  "Oh,  I  never  thought  there  was  all 
that  in  it ;  I  wish  something  of  this  had  been  pointed  out 
to  me  when  I  was  a  boy,  learning  music !  " 

Boys,  particularly,  are  often  afraid  or  intolerant  of  what 
is  popularly,  but  very  inaccurately,  described  as  "  classical  " 
music.  The  terms  Sonata,  Symphony  and  the  like  are  more 
or  less  bugbears  to  them.  Why?  Is  it  not  because 
insufficient  familiarity  with  such  things  breeds  shyness? 
Here,  even  the  proverbial  "  little  knowledge  "  would  work 
wonders,  for  once  at  any  rate  falsifying  the  old  adage  as 
to  its  dangerousness,  and  the  ranks  of  non-professional 
music-lovers  would  be  recruited  to  a  far  larger  extent  with 
the  right  sort  of  material,  more  intelligent,  more  truly  recep- 
tive and  possessed  of  some  sort  of  foundation  in  experience 
upon  which  to  base  their  opinions  and  their  judgments  in 
the  time  to  come. 

In  the  next  place,  we  all  acknowledge,  in  these  days,  that 
the  general  elementary  education  of  the  child  should  form 
a  basis  upon  which  the  superstructure  of 
the  special  training  necessary  for  his  life-  The  educational 
work  (whatever  that  may  be)  may  safely 
be   built.      Now,   it   is    perfectly    obvious  iife-WOrk 
that,   apart   from   the   bearing  of   music- 
study  upon  the  development  of  the  general  faculties,  its 
pursuit  must  be  undertaken  with  the  object  of  training 
either  — 

I.  The  amateur  or  music-lover  (who  obviously  may  not 
be  able  to  play  more  than  the  part  of  a  listener). 
II.  The  professional  musician  (who,  we  hope,  is  equally 
a  music-lover). 

What,  however,  has  not  been  sufficiently  recognized, 
and,  as  a  consequence,  has  rarely  been  acted  upon,  is  the 
fact  that  the  earliest  stages  of  the  child's  work  should  be 


12       THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD 

practically  identical  in  both  cases,  and  should  prepare  for 
both  these  possibilities.  In  other  words,  what  is  taught 
and  learned  in  school  days  should  lead  naturally,  and  without 
any  "  tearing  up  at  the  roots,"  towards  whichever  is  event- 
ually to  be  the  end  in  prospect.  The  foundation  must 
be  the  same  in  both  cases  —  that  is  to  say,  the  whole 
nature  of  the  child  must  be  made  as  responsive  to  music  as 
possible,  through  the  training  of  his  hearing  sense.  We 
have  seen  something  of  the  effect,  in  after  life,  on  the 
amateur  from  the  lack  of  this;  how  much  more  serious 
does  it  not  become  in  the  case  of  one  who  eventually 
purposes  to  follow  the  art  of  music  as  a  career?  Can 
we  say  that  the  early  musical  education  of  the  child  has 
invariably  been  such  as  to  enable  him  to  enter  upon  his 
studies  as  a  professional  student  of  music  (where  that  has 
been  his  aim)  with  ear  and  mind  prepared  to  benefit  from 
his  special  training? 

There  will  be  few  to  admit  this  amongst  those  whose  duty 
it  has  been,  or  is,  to  deal  with  such  students,  who  not  infre- 
quently take  up  their  work  with  their  musico-mental  faculties 
singularly  undeveloped.  They  have,  perhaps,  a  fair  degree 
of  executive  skill  with  the  voice,  or  upon  an  instrument,  but 
little  else.  Upon  whom  does  the  responsibility  for  this  state 
of  things  ultimately  lie?  Again,  where  is  the  remedy  to  be 
found  ?  The  answer  to  both  these  questions  must  be  sought 
for  in  the  early  stages  of  the  student's  musical  life ;  the  tonal 
and  rhythmic  sense  is  usually  most  keen  and  alert  between 
the  ages  of  five  or  six  and  thirteen  or  fourteen  —  in  other 
words,  during  school-age ;  and  if  it  is  not  cared  for  then,  it  is 
extremely  difficult  (save  in  the  case  of  specially  gifted  pupils) 
to  recover  lost  ground  in  later  years.  Now,  as  the  cultiva- 
tion of  this  sense  need  not  involve  an  abnormal  expenditure 
of  time,  provided  it  is  undertaken  upon  right  lines,  I  plead 
for  an  unprejudiced  consideration  of  the  matter  in  its 
widest  aspect  by  musicians  and  educationists  alike.  The 
school  is  the  place  of  all  others  where  the  art  of  music, 
equally  with  other  "  humane  "  subjects,  should  be  taught 
on  enlightened  lines,  and  from  a  really  educational  stand- 
point. If  it  is  not  thought  worthy  of  this  consideration, 
I,  personally,  cannot  see  why  it  should  occupy  a  place  in 
school-life  at  all;  it  were  far  better  to  delete  it  from  the 
list  of  school  activities. 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF   THE   CHILD       13 

But  I  feel  most  strongly  that  the  school  should  be  in  a 
very  special  sense  the  "  nursery  "  of  music,  as  of  other  de- 
partments of  education ;  for  here  it  should 
have  the  best  chance  of  being  taught  with 
due  and  necessary  reference  to  the  other  Ofmusic 
branches  of  a  liberal  mental  upbringing. 
Too  often,  as  we  know,  the  possession  of  a  special  aptitude 
for  music  has  meant  that  the  child's  general  education  has 
been  grievously  neglected.  Even  if  its  progress  has  not 
been  prematurely  checked  at  a  time  when  his  intelligence 
needs,  above  all  things,  a  sane,  all-round  development, 
it  has  been  disastrously  impaired  by  the  foolish  policy, 
pursued  by  some  parents,  of  compelling  him  to  concentrate 
all  his  young  attention,  will  and  brain-power  exclusively 
on  the  practising  of  some  instrument.  The  wrong-head- 
edness  of  this  method  of  procedure  should  be  obvious; 
its  grim  results  are  to  be  found  in  countless  cases  of 
arrested  mental  growth  and  the  ultimate  defeat  of  the  very 
objects  primarily  aimed  at.1 

But  if  the  schools  —  as  I  have  said  —  are  to  be  the  "  nurs- 
eries "  of  music,  as  of  other  higher  activities,  it  is  clear  that 
they  must  attract,  in  increasing  numbers,  the  right  kind  of 
teachers. 

School  music-teaching  has  often  had  a  bad  name,  and  not 
without  reason.  To-day  things  are,  happily,  improving 
rapidly,  and  in  our  better-equipped  schools  (especially  those 
for  girls)  the  musical  curriculum  is  planned  in  a  broad-minded 
spirit  and  carried  into  execution  in  a  manner  wholly  admi- 
rable. But  our  schools,  as  a  whole,  will  never  be  the  power 
they  might  be  in  matters  musical,  until  they  are  able  to  attract 
an  army  of  teachers  trained  to  deal  with  their  subject  as  an 
important  item  in  the  mental  development  of  the  child, 
and  capable  of  viewing  it,  as  it  should  and  must  be  viewed, 
not  as  a  thing  in  isolation,  but  in  due  relation  to  the  supreme 
question  of  that  child's  education  in  its  totality. 

My  plea,  therefore,  at  this  stage  is  — 

I.  That  the  heads  of  our  schools  will  carefully  weigh 
-  as  many,  I  am  happy  to  say,  are  doing  to-day 

1  Such  persons  invariably  overlook  the  significant  fact  that,  almost 
without  exception,  the  really  great  artists  of  to-day  are  men  and  women 
of  wide  reading  and  liberal  culture. 


14       THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF   THE   CHILD 

—  the  question  of  the  value  of  music-study,  and 
consider  the  form  in  which  it  may  best  help 
towards  the  total  educational  result  of  the  child's 
school  years ; 

II.  That  they  will  recognize  it  as  one  of  the  regular 
subjects  (as  important  in  its  own  way  as  languages 
or  mathematics),  and  not  regard  it  as  an  "  extra," 
tolerated  —  as  I  have  already  said  —  simply  as 
a  more  or  less  necessary  evil  in  an  imperf  ect  stage 
of  civilization ! 

It  is  reasonable  to  expect  that  in  many  schools  instru- 
mental lessons  must  be  more  or  less  extra  things ;  I  am, 
however,  not  now  talking  of  these,  but  of  the  general  founda- 
tional  work  in  music  to  which  most  of  my  remarks  have 
referred.  Next,  it  is  of  the  first  importance,  to  my  think- 
ing, that  the  music-teacher  should  be  genuinely  one  of  the 
school  staff,  welcomed  as  a  person  who  is  doing  valuable 
work  in  the  educational  development  of  the  child  —  not 
as  a  visitor  whom  the  rest  of  the  staff  hardly  know,  even 
by  sight.  The  recognition  of  this,  however,  involves  a 
responsibility  on  the  part  of  the  music-teacher  to  take  a 
deeper  interest  than  he  usually  has  done  in  other  branches 
of  work  than  his  own  —  and  here  much  improvement  is 
needed. 

Then,  in  view  of  the  increased  and  increasing  demands 
on  the  music-teacher  of  to-day,  comes  the  absolute  necessity 
of  the  managers  of  our  schools  making  the  terms  upon  which 
such  teachers  are  employed  commensurate  with  those  de- 
mands. I  am  not  going  to  set  out  upon  the  thorny  path  of 
economics,  but  simply  wish  to  state  what  is  a  reasonable 
and  righteous  demand,  based  upon  the  irrefutable  principle 
that  "  the  laborer  is  worthy  of  his  hire." 

Into  the  question  of  the  organization  of  the  school  time- 
table I  will  not  enter  here  and  now.  I  will  merely  reiterate 
what  a  well-known  headmistress  said  to  me  not  long  ago : 
"  Where  there's  a  will  there's  a  way  ;  once  convince  us  that  a 
demand  is  right,  and  of  real  educational  value,  and  it  can  be 
managed  somehow . ' '  And ,  what  is  more ,  this  matter  is  being 
managed  in  very  many  schools  to-day  in  a  way  which  would 
have  been  declared  impossible  of  realization  only  a  few 
years  ago. 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF   THE   CHILD       15 

We  live  in  times  of  stress,  but  also,  let  me  say,  in  times 
of  the  greatest  hope  for  musical  education.  This  being 
the  case,  the  music-teacher,  on  his  part,  must 
recognize  that,  while  there  is  no  room  for 
the  "  slacker,"  or  for  him  who  is  disinclined 
to  move  out  of  old  grooves,  there  is  more 
and  more  scope  for  the  fully  equipped,  well-educated,  pro- 
gressive teacher  who  has  some  kind  of  vision  with  regard 
to  his  art,  who  sees  in  it  a  means  by  which  he  may  help  to 
build  up  the  mind  and  character  of  his  pupil,  and  sow  the 
seeds  of  an  appreciation  of  beauty  and  purity  in  his  soul. 

Educationists  are  now  meeting  the  musician  half-way; 
it  is  for  him  to  present  his  subject  in  such  a  manner  as  will 
prove  to  those  responsible  for  the  educational  curriculum 
that  music  can  contribute  its  share  in  the  process  of  the 
child's  mental  development,  and  to  demonstrate  that  the 
days  are  past  and  over  when  the  teaching  of  our  Divine  art 
could  be  associated  in  people's  minds  with  young  ladies' 
seminaries  and  "  Papa,  potatoes,  prunes  and  prisms." 

The  "  accomplishment  "  of  yesterday  is  going  to  be  one 
of  the  most  valuable  educational  factors  of  to-morrow. 
Great  progress  has  already  been  made ;  but  there  is  much 
land  yet  to  be  possessed.  We  hear  much  talk  —  at  prize 
distributions,  public  dinners  and  the  like  —  of  the  human- 
izing influence  of  music.  I  often  wonder  whether  those 
who  use  this  expression  really  know  what  they  mean,  but 
what  is  very  clear  to  me  is  that  the  humanizing  influence 
of  music  is  to  be  found  in  a  different  way  from  that  of  which 
these  worthy  speakers  dream.  Music  is  a  human  activity, 
and  it  is  not  to  be  approached  in  a  spirit  of  mental  idleness 
as  a  soporific;  it  is  not  a  species  of  vapor-bath,  in  which 
our  senses  may  wallow,  but  it  is  an  art  to  be  understood  and 
appreciated  (i.e.,  valued)  by  the  alert  use  of  our  mind  and 
the  exercise  of  our  intelligence.  Let  us  see  to  it  that  the 
foundations  of  this  true  appreciation  are  laid  securely  at 
the  time  of  all  others  when  mind  and  heart  are  responsive 
to  pure  and  healthy  impressions  —  I  mean  in  childhood. 

Thus,  and  thus  only,  it  seems  to  me,  shall  we  be  enabled 
to  create  a  more  serious  regard  for  the  art  of  music  as  a  force 
in  our  national  life,  worthy  of  the  exercise  of  the  best  of  our 
mental  powers,  and  also  a  means  by  which  those  powers  may 
in  turn  be  developed,  strengthened  and  enriched. 


THE   MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF    THE   CHILD       17 


PART  TWO 

APPRECIATIVE   MUSIC-STUDY;   ITS   MEANING 
AND   ITS   VALUE1 

"It  is  probable  that  a  ...  sort  of  music- teaching 
that  would  aim,  not  at  instrumentalization,  but 
at  intelligent  appreciation,  might  find  a  place  in  a 
complete  educational  scheme." 

H.  G.  WELLS  —  "  Mankind  in  the  Making  "  (1904) 

"Every   teacher  who  .  .  .  finds  a  new   channel 
of  access  to  the  intelligence,   the  conscience,   and 
the  sympathy  of  his  scholars  will  do  a  service  .  .  . 
to  the  whole  community."  ^  JOSHUA 


SUGGESTIONS  FOR  A  COURSE  OF  CLASS-WORK  IN 
SCHOOLS 

IN  "Some  Aims  in  Modern  Musical  Education,"  I  tried  to 
show  that  the  precise  degree  of  importance  attaching  to  the 
study  of  music  in  the  curriculum  of  our  schools  is,  notwith- 
standing considerable  progress  in  this  direction  during  the  last 
few  years,  still  a  matter  concerning  which  much  uncertainty 
prevails,  even  amongst  those  who  are  immediately  responsi- 
ble for  the  formulation  and  administration  of  that  cur- 
riculum. On  the  one  hand,  there  are  those  who  can  see  in 
music-study  little  more  than  the  pursuit  of  a  polite  accom- 
plishment, and  regard  its  introduction  into  the  school  time- 
table as  an  intrusion,  as  unwelcome  as  it  is  (in  their  opinion) 
useless  from  an  educational  point  of  view.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  are  those  who  feel  that  there  is  in  such  study  a 
real  educative  and  moral  value,  but  who  nevertheless  have 
an  uneasy  suspicion  that  the  form  it  usually  takes  does  not 
correspond  in  its  results  with  their  own  ideas  as  to  its  worth. 

1  Many  of  the  ideas  contained  in  this  essay  originally  appeared,  in 
1910,  under  the  title  of  "The  Appreciative  Aspect  of  Music-study." 


18        THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD 

Amongst  this  latter  class  are  to  be  found  many  headmasters 
and  headmistresses  who  —  it  may  be,  more  or  less  vaguely 
—  realize  that  the  study  of  music  might  be  made  much 
more  fruitful  of  good  than  it  is;  but  who,  either  through 
lack  of  specialized  knowledge  on  their  own  part,  or  indif- 
ference and  apathy  on  the  part  of  the  parents  of  the  children 
under  their  care,  have  until  now  been  unable  to  see  their 
way  clearly  enough  to  make  any  experiments  in  a  new  direc- 
tion —  especially  knowing  that  any  such  experiments  might 
not  inconceivably  be  productive  of  opposition  from  the  less 
progressive  members  of  their  musical  staff. 

That  we  are  on  the  eve  of  considerable  changes  in  methods 
of  music-study  as  applied  to  the  general  run  of  our  boys  and 
girls,  is  becoming  increasingly  evident  to  the  careful  observer. 
That  changes  are  desirable  and  even  vital,  if  we  wish  for 
progress,  can  no  longer  be  doubted,  and  it  is  in  the  hope  of 
contributing  from  one's  own  experience  something  which  may 
be  helpful  to  those  who  are  seriously  considering  these  newer 
aspects  of  the  subject  that  I  have  ventured  to  put  the  fol- 
lowing thoughts  together. 

I  think  it  will  be  admitted  without  cavil  that  it  has  taken 
this  country  of  ours  many  years  to  develop  any  sort  of  order 
out  of  the  chaos  in  which  the  general  education  of  our  young 
people  was  for  long  involved.  Latterly,  however,  we  have 
seen  great  strides  in  methods  of  teaching,  in  systematized 
study,  and  even  in  popular  interest  in  the  training  of  the 
young. 

The  improvement  that  has  been  steadily  going  on  in 
the  general  equipment  of  our  boys  and  girls  has  been  felt, 
too,  in  the  department  of  special  studies, 

°f  whi°h  mUsiC  is  °ne*  The  uPward  trend 
Muskstudy  °^  things  nas  been  for  some  time  particu- 

larly noticeable  —  especially  in  composition 
and  piano-playing  —  in  our  great  schools  of  music ;  and 
I  should  like  to  say  here  that  no  one  appreciates  with  more 
honest  admiration  than  I  myself  the  great  work  that  has, 
during  the  last  decade  or  so,  been  wrought  out  by  a  few 
eminent  piano-teachers  who,  by  reducing  the  technique  of 
performance  to  a  more  or  less  exact  science,  have  been  able 
not  only  to  criticise  and  correct  the  faults  of  their  pupils, 
but  in  every  case  to  give  them  a  carefully  reasoned  and 
scientific  method  of  overcoming  the  difficulties,  physical  and 


THE   MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD        19 

mental,  that  crowd  upon  the  learner  at  certain  stages  of 
his  instrumental  course.  For  those  who  have  been  in  the 
van  of  the  crusade  against  technical  slovenliness  and  in- 
competence, no  thanks  are  too  great  for  having  effected  a 
much-needed  reform. 

But,  striking  as  all  this  remarkable  executive  achievement 
is,  the  fact  remains  that,  speaking  broadly,  the  teaching  art, 
so  far  as  music  is  concerned,  has  yet  to  be  systematized,  and 
musical  education  coordinated  with,  and  properly  related 
to,  the  child's  other  studies. 

It  is  necessary,  on  the  one  hand,  that  the  place  of  music 
in  his  mental  development  should  be  more  clearly  recognized 
and  valued  by  those  not  specially  concerned 
with   music-teaching;    and,   on   the   other  Music-study 
hand,  that  the  music-teacher  should  have  a 
wider  outlook,  and  realize  that  his  or  her 
art  is  only  one  means  out  of  many  whereby 
that  child's  nature  is  to  expand  and  open  out  to  the  beauties 
and  wonders  of  the  world  in  which  it  finds  itself. 

There,  in  these  last  words,  it  seems  to  me,  lies  the  root 
of  the  whole  matter,  namely,  the  "  keeping  ever  alert  the 
faculty  of  wonder  "  in  the  child's  soul.  As  a  recent  writer 
has  said :  "  To  take  life  as  a  matter  of  course  —  whether 
painful  or  pleasurable  —  that  is  a  spiritual  death,  from  which 
it  is  the  task  of  education  to  deliver  us."  x 

Now,  it  is  at  least  an  open  question  whether  the  general 
teaching  and  learning  of  music,  as  it  has  been  usually  under- 
stood in  the  past,  has  ever  had  more  than  a  somewhat  remote 
connection  with  such  a  thought  as  this.  True  it  is  that  at 
times  a  teacher,  with  the  instinct  of  a  real  lover  of  his  art, 
will  have  been  found  to  awaken  that  sense  of  delight  in,  and 
wonder  at,  the  beauties  of  music  itself  which  should  be  the 
heritage,  not  of  the  few,  but  of  the  many.  But  I  think  that 
it  may  be  accepted  as  a  fact  not  easily  controverted  that,  in 
the  huge  majority  of  cases,  the  piano-lessons  which  our  young 
people  have  had  to  take  week  after  week,  and  which  alone 
have  represented  "  music  "  to  them,  have  done  little  to 
stimulate  those  faculties  the  arousing  of  which  I  have  alluded 
to  above  as  the  aim  and  end  of  true  education.  At  the  very 
least,  we  may  ask  ourselves,  does  this  special  form  of  activity 
stand  out  in  after  years  in  their  thoughts  as  something  which 
1  "Let  youth  but  know,"  by  "Kappa." 


20       THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD 

was,  even  in  earliest  days,  a  joy  and  a  delight  —  something 
which  drew  them  insensibly,  perhaps,  but  none  the  less  surely, 
towards  the  Pure  and  the  Beautiful  ? 

"All  music-teachers  acknowledge  the  difficulties  they  have  to 
contend  with,  thanks  to  our  indiscriminate  custom  of  setting  nearly 

every  child  to  learn  the  violin  or  piano,  regard- 
Sterile  Music-  less  of  natural  tendencies  or  physical  disabilities. 
teaching  What  do  these  children  really  learn  about  music  ? 

Many  of  them  after  four  or  five  years  of  drudg- 
ery acquire  a  limited  repertory  of  pieces,  forgotten  almost  as 
soon  as  they  are  learned,  the  execution  of  which  can,  one  imagines, 
only  give  satisfaction  to  the  most  fond  and  unmusical  parents. 
This  is  no  reflection  upon  their  teachers,  whose  conscientious 
efforts  to  make  executants  out  of  the  most  unpromising  materials 
involve  a  labor  even  more  severe  than  that  which  is  imposed  upon 
the  children  themselves."  l 

Agreeing  as  I  do  with  every  word  of  the  above  quotation, 
I  would  yet  give  every  boy  and  girl  the  opportunity  of  learn- 
ing some  instrument  (the  piano,  for  obvious  reasons,  being 
of  especial  value,  as  being  self-contained) ;  and  I  would 
encourage  such  instrumental  study  by  every  legitimate 
means.  But  in  a  large  body  of  young  people  it  stands  to 
reason  that  there  will  be  some  whose  interest  will  not 
eventually  lie  in  the  overcoming  of  the  many  muscular 
and  other  difficulties  connected  with  the  learning  of  an 
instrument;  that  there  will  be  others  who  are  physically 
unfit  for  the  strain  of  the  work ;  others,  again,  whose  fingers 
are  hopelessly  incapable  of  achieving  any  sort  of  instru- 
mental control.  Moreover,  the  amount  of  time  possible 
for  the  necessary  practice  will,  owing  to  the  pressure  of  other 
studies  and  of  examinations,  often  be  absurdly  inadequate 
for  the  attainment  of  anything  like  a  passable  degree  of 
executive  skill.  Are  we,  then,  to  cut  off  such  pupils  from 
musical  influences  altogether?  Surely  not.  Distaste  or 
inability  in  the  matter  of  learning  to  play  the  piano  is  hardly 
to  be  regarded  as  a  proof  either  of  an  unmusical  nature  or 
of  a  dislike  for  music ;  on  the  contrary,  such  young  people 
are  often  naturally  predisposed  music- wards,  and  might 
become  interested  and  intelligent  listeners,  capable  in  time 
of  real,  critical  appreciation  of  the  art  in  its  highest  forms. 
In  the  case  of  literature,  we  should  not  go  to  the  length 

1  From  a  pamphlet  on  the  educational  value  of  the  Pianola,  by  Sir 
Henry  J.  Wood,  the  eminent  conductor. 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD       21 

of  depriving  them  of  good  books  if  they  were  to  prove  them- 
selves unable  to  recite,  or  unfit  to  write  verses ;  why,  then, 
starve  them  musically  simply  because  from  comparable 
reasons  they  prove  themselves  unable  to  reproduce  with 
any  degree  of  success  the  musical  literature  on  the  piano? 
After  all,  in  literary  studies  it  is  the  literature  itself  which  is 
the  important  thing  to  bring  the  pupil  into  touch  with ;  it 
matters  comparatively  little,  so  far  as 
appreciation  goes,  whether  that  pupil  can 
recite  before  an  audience  or  not.  So,  study 
surely,  in  music,  what  we  need  is  an  appre- 
ciative grip  of  the  music  itself,  and  I  am  convinced  that  we 
shall  never  create  a  community  of  really  intelligent  listeners 
capable  of  estimating  with  any  degree  of  discrimination  the 
works  with  which  they  are  brought  into  contact  at  concerts 
and  on  other  similar  occasions,  until  we  realize  that  their 
training  shall  consist  of  something  more  than  the  abortive 
struggles  at  the  keyboard,  which  at  present  too  often  pass  as 
musical  education  in  many  schools  and  private  families. 

Again,  for  fear  of  being  misunderstood,  I  wish  to  repeat 
with  emphasis  that  I  do  not  undervalue  good  instrumental 
teaching.  Far  from  it !  For  those  who  have  the  necessary 
aptitude,  the  very  fact  of  reproducing  for  themselves  at  the 
instrument  some,  at  least,  of  the  music  with  which  they 
become  familiar,  is  the  greatest  incentive  to  further  progress ; 
but  it  is  most  essential  to  remember  that  the  constructive 
or  executive  side  of  music-study  is  largely 
distinct  from  the  appreciative  side,  and  Appreciative, 

it  is  necessary  to  see  that  the  true  appre-  as  dis^nct  from 

.   , .         -          .     .  .     ,,      ~          i  executive, 

ciation  of  music  is  not  —  in  the  first  place  —  Music-study 

dependent  upon  the  amount  of  executive 
skill  acquired  by  the  listener.  This  may  conceivably  be 
almost  nil,  without  impairing  the  critical  faculty,  provided 
that  from  early  days  the  student  has  been  brought  into 
touch  with  what  is  best  in  our  art,  coupled  with  some  sort 
of  sensible  elucidation  of  its  design  and  purport,  imparted 
by  a  teacher  capable  of  dealing  with  this  aspect  of  the 
subject.  An  article  written  some  time  ago  in  the  "  Cruci- 
ble" sums  up  the  matter  aptly  in  the  following  passage: 

"Except  in  the  most  superficial  way,  our  education  of  the  pres- 
ent day  fails  to  impart  that  sort  of  training  which  is  an  essential 
condition  for  any  intelligent  appreciation  of  the  higher  forms  of 


22       THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD 

music.  A  knowledge  of  musical  form  or  design,  of  harmonic  color- 
ing, and  of  the  outlines  of  musical  history  and  development,  is 
just  as  vitally  necessary  for  the  rational  enjoyment  of  music  as 
the  perception  of  line  and  form  and  color  for  the  appreciation  of 
a  great  picture.  Yet,  so  long  as  we  persist  in  teaching  our  boys 
and  girls  to  play,  without  giving  them  this  essential  education  in 
the  vital  facts  of  music,  we  are  simply  giving  them  a  possibly  use- 
ful course  of  finger  and  hand  gymnastics,  with,  in  some  cases,  a 
certain  amount  of  emotional  development ;  but  we  are  not  training 
them  to  become  intelligent  listeners,  or  enabling  them  to  make  in 
their  after  life  any  extended  acquaintance  with  that  great  litera- 
ture of  music  which  should  be  open  to  all." 


It  should  be  self-evident  that  the  foundation  of  all  real 
progress  in  music-study  lies  in  the  training  of  the  ear  —  the 


E     trainin  ear  °^  ^e  c^^'  with  its  untold  possibilities; 

and  yet  it  is  just  in  this  department  that 
the  state  of  music-teaching,  even  to-day,  is  often  so  singu- 
larly and  lamentably  deficient.  Happily,  since  these  words 
were  first  written,  in  1910,  a  very  welcome  degree  of  atten- 
tion has  been  given  to  this  subject  of  Aural  training,  and 
among  the  many  signs  of  a  growing  interest  in  matters 
connected  with  the  musical  education  of  our  girls  and  boys 
none  is  likely  to  be  productive  of  more  important  results. 
This  aspect  of  the  main  question  has  already  formed  the 
basis  of  discussion  at  purely  educational  conferences;  it 
now  boasts  the  possession  of  a  considerable  amount  of 
literature  dealing  with  the  many  details  connected  with  its 
pursuit,  and  —  in  short  —  it  has  been  raised  in  the  space  of 
three  or  four  years  from  the  position  of  the  utterly  disregarded 
fad  of  a  few  so-called  "  cranks  "  to  that  of  a  vital  topic  of 
consideration  amongst  those  whose  business  it  is  to  deal  with 
the  up-bringing  of  the  rising  generation. 

Notwithstanding  all  this,  the  fact  remains  that  in  countless 
schools  little  or  nothing  is  as  yet  done  in  this  direction,  and, 
although  the  eye  is  trained  daily  in  many  different  ways,  the 
sensitiveness  of  the  ear  is  allowed  to  remain  undeveloped 
and  indeed  uncared-for.  Have  we  not,  many  of  us,  vivid 
recollections  of  the  way  in  which,  at  our  own  music-lessons, 
our  attention  as  children  was  called  to  notes  (not  sounds), 
and  our  fingers  were  taught  to  make  movements  the  sounds 
produced  by  which  we  were  never  encouraged  in  any  sense 
to  realize  aurally,  or  to  assimilate  mentally?  I  find  it 
difficult  to  use  language  strong  enough  to  express  all  that 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD       23 

I  feel  with  regard  to  this  woefully  neglected  subject  of 
ear-training.  It  would  seem  that  it  has  taken  people  a  very 
long  time  to  appreciate  a  fact  in  itself  so  obvious  and  even 
axiomatic  as  this :  that  music  reaches  us  through  the  ear, 
and  that  it  is  the  precise  nature  of  the  impression  on  the  ear 
which  constitutes  the  sort  of  grasp  we  get  of  the  music. 
Moreover,  the  idea  has  prevailed  that  an  "  ear  for  music  " 
was  purely  a  gift,  and  that  if  it  were  not  in  evidence  at  once 
it  was  of  no  use  to  try  to  develop  it !  Contact  with  a  very 
varied  range  of  students  from  many  parts  of  the  world  has 
forced  upon  me  the  conclusion  that  (perhaps  owing  to  the 
idea  I  have  mentioned  above)  little  or  nothing  has  as  a  rule 
been  done  for  the  average  girl  or  boy  in  the  matter  of  the 
cultivation  of  the  ear  during  the  period  of  greatest  sensitive- 
ness —  I  mean,  between  the  ages  (roughly  speaking)  of  six 
and  fourteen.1  And  seemingly,  so  little  has  this  omission 
been  considered  as  a  bar  to  musical  progress,  or  even  to  the 
following  of  the  art  as  a  career,  that  I  have  often,  in  response 
to  a  question  or  two  directed  to  this  matter,  received  the 
answer  in  a  perfectly  contented  and  even  cheerful  tone  of 
voice :  "  Oh,  I  must  say  that  my  ear  is  my  weak  point !  " 
What  would  be  thought  of  a  student  of  painting  saying  with 
equal  nonchalance  that  his  eye  was  his  weak  point !  As  a  con- 
sequence of  this  defect  in  early  training  it  too  often  happens 
that  those  who  have  to  deal  with  the  more  advanced  and 
intimate  aspects  of  music-study,  such  as  the  teaching  of  Har- 
mony, are  constantly  finding  themselves  up  against  that 
"  brick  wall  "  of  an  unresponsive  ear,  which  renders  nugatory 
nine-tenths  of  their  efforts  to  make  such  study  a  real  and  vital 
part  of  the  development  of  the  musical  sense  and  sensibility. 
The  next  point  it  is  most  necessary  for  us  to  recognize  is 
that,  if  in  literary  study  —  as  will  surely  be  granted  —  it  is 
with  literature  itself  we  wish  our  pupils  to 
become  acquainted,  so  in  musical  study  it 
should  in  like  manner  be  music  itself  with 
which  they  should  come  into  direct  contact,  presented  to 
them  in  such  a  way  that  its  beauty  and  its  worth  may  at 
least  have  a  chance  of  making  an  appeal  to  their  sym- 
pathies. It  is  often  the  case,  as  we  all  know,  that  the 

1  Observation  has  shown  that  not  more  than  two  per  cent  of  quite 
young  children  are  totally  destitute  of  ear,  but  that  the  faculty  of 
distinguishing  sounds  and  appreciating  rhythmic  detail  rapidly  dies 
down,  if  not  systematically  trained. 


24        THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD 

only  music,  of  the  right  kind,  our  young  people  do  get  into 
touch  with,  save  in  distinctly  musical  homes,  is  merely  that 
with  which  they  themselves  are  struggling,  in  order  to  over- 
come those  very  technical  difficulties  to  which  allusion  has 
been  made.  This  frequently  amounts  to  little  more  than 
Czerny  Studies  and  Clementi  Sonatinas,  with  a  few  pieces 
by  Gurlitt  or  some  other  such  composer  to  supply  the  more 
recreative  element  in  their  work. 

We  should  remember  that  a  child  of  average  intelligence 
can  take  in  and  assimilate  much  more  than  he  can  reproduce, 
and  it  is  crushing  to  his  musical  understanding,  and  indeed 
to  his  love  of  music  at  all,  that  he  should  be  limited  in  his 
range  of  serious  musical  impressions  merely  to  the  pieces 
he  can  play  himself.  Fortunately,  we  do  not  nowadays 
postpone  introducing  the  child  to  the  beautiful  stories  of 
classical  or  modern  days,  as  told  by  great  authors,  until  he 
can  read  them  easily  for  himself.  Should  we  not,  therefore, 
do  something  towards  getting  him  into  similar  effective 
communion  with  music  —  not  merely  with  what  he  is  (to 
quote  the  amusing  expression  of  a  well-known  headmistress) 
"  contaminating  with  his  own  dirty  little  fingers,"  but  with 
music  really  well  played  and  simply  commented  upon  by  a 
cultured  and  enthusiastic  teacher,  who  knows  how  to 
approach  the  youthful  mind  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  it 
respond  both  to  the  music  and  to  the  few  words  of  sym- 
pathetic explanation?  Feeling  all  this  very  strongly,  I 
have  for  some  time  past  pleaded  for  the  formation  —  partic- 
ularly in  our  schools  —  of  Musical  Appreciation  classes, 
in  which  the  teacher  shall  so  play  to  the  pupils,  giving  them 
at  the  same  time  help  in  the  recognition  of  the  character 
and  purport  of  the  music,  and  in  the  following  of  the  com- 
poser's design,  in  order  that  the  power  of  assimilating  that 
music  —  at  any  rate,  in  some  degree  —  in  a  conscious  and 
reasonable  way  may  gradually  be  developed,  and  the  founda- 
tions of  intelligent  listening  laid  with  some  sort  of  security. 

In  the  earliest  stages,  where  a  class  consisted  of  quite 
young  children  of  Kindergarten  age,  the  music  would,  of 
course,  be  of  an  entirely  recreative  nature 

(such    as    merry    nursery    tunes>    and    the 
like)   and  the  aim  should  merely  be  the 

awakening  of  the  child's  imagination  and  of  his  rhythmic 
sense  by  means  of  an  attractive  musical  stimulus,  to  which 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF   THE   CHILD       25 

he  should  be  allowed  to  give  himself  up  in  unrestrained 
enjoyment.  By  degrees,  however,  he  should  begin  to  realize 
such  fundamental  matters  as  regularity  of  pulse,  the  "  trend 
of  the  phrase,"  and  the  periodical  recurrence  of  musical 
ideas.  Afterwards  comes  the  more  intellectual  process  of 
knowing  what  happens ;  he  becomes  acquainted  with  dif- 
ferences of  pitch  and  of  time,  always  by  means  of  observing 
what  takes  place  in  the  music  to  which  he  listens ;  he  learns 
gradually  how  such  things  are  expressed  in  notation,  and  — 
a  matter  of  great  importance  —  his  own  creative  powers 
are  aroused  and  encouraged,  not  with  the  object  of  breed- 
ing a  race  of  composers  —  which  would  be  as  absurd  as  it 
would  be  beside  the  mark  —  but  in  order  that  the  power  to 
originate,  however  feebly,  may  be  developed  in  him,  and  so 
afford  him  another  and  most  valuable  means  of  self-expres- 
sion. When  the  ear  is  thus  trained  to  observe  and  to  appre- 
hend at  an  early  age,  the  possibilities  of  development  along 
these  lines  are  almost  endless  —  that  is,  in  the  case  of  chil- 
dren of  average  intelligence,  possessing  no  obvious  physical 
disability  with  regard  to  their  hearing  sense.1 

Where,  however,  the  child's  ear  has  been  neglected,  and 
he  reaches  fifteen,  sixteen  or  seventeen  years  of  age  without 
any  attention  having  been  paid  to  its  cultivation,  it  is  not 
to  be  wondered  at  that,  in  most  instances,  whatever  sensi- 
tiveness of  aural  perception  there  may  have  been  originally, 
becomes  dulled,  and  the  teacher  cannot  hope  to  accomplish 
so  much  as  in  the  case  of  the  children  we 
have    been    considering.     But    even    here  Appreciative 
...  .  ^  .  study  and  the 

Appreciative  music-study  steps  in  to  pro-  negiected 

vide   the   means   by   which   the   spark   of  ear 
interest  in  the  art,  however  feeble  it  may 
seem  to  be,  may  be  fanned  into  a  flame  of  real  enthusiasm 
by  a  zealous  and  capable  teacher.     It  is  clear  that  a  train- 
ing in  the  appreciation  of  the  finer  and  more  "  delicate 
impressions  and  distinctions,"  possible  when  the  ear  has  been 
cared  for  systematically  from  early  childhood,  will  have  to 
give  way  to  a  broader  and  less  minute  study  of  the  more  out- 
standing and  striking  features  of  the  music ;  but  along  such 
lines  there  is  endless  scope. 

Is  no  attempt,  then,  to  be  made  to  awaken  the  dormant 
faculties  of  such  pupils  as  those  to  whom  we  are  now  referring, 
1  Reference  should  here  be  made  to  the  footnote  on  page  23. 


26        THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD 

and  to  encourage  some  response  in  their  minds  and  hearts 
to  the  beauties  which  lie  locked  away  in  that  treasure-house, 
whose  key  has,  perchance,  never  yet  been  found?  Surely 
something  may  be  done  ;  something  can  and  should  be  done. 

Suggestions  for  School  Class-work 

In  offering  a  suggested  course  of  class-work,  I  am  fully 
aware  that  conditions  vary  in  different  schools;  and,  as  a 
consequence  of  this,  the  following  scheme  must  be  regarded 
as  indicating  the  main  principles  to  be  aimed  at  and  carried 
out  in  sound  music-teaching,  rather  than  as  constituting  any 
hard-and-fast  system  to  be  adhered  to  without  reference  to 
local  requirements. 

When  "  The  Appreciative  Aspect  of  Music-study  "  first 
appeared  five  years  ago,  I  based  the  scheme  upon  a  recog- 
nition of  three  main  factors  of  importance  (other  than  good 
instrumental  teaching,  with  which  the  articles  were  not 
immediately  concerned)  in  any  kind  of  successful  musical 
education  of  the  mass  of  our  young  people.  These  factors 
were :  — 

I.   Singing  at  sight  1  Combined  in  the  work  of 

II.    Systematic  ear-training   j      a  Singing-class. 
III.    Opportunities  for  listen-    i.e.,  work  in  an  "  Appre- 
ing  to  music,  ciation  "  class. 

Since  then,  further  experience  and  consideration  of  the 
matter  have  led  me  to  the  belief  that,  although  in  some 
instances  the  above  arrangement  of  class-work  might 
advantageously  be  followed,  a  better,  and  on  the  whole  more 
practical,  division  of  the  different  branches  of  study  is  to  be 
found  in  the  scheme  which  follows.  This  assumes  two  types 
of  class  for  general  music-study,  carefully  graded  throughout 
the  school  according  to  the  age  and  ability  of  the  pupils  :  — 

I.  The  Aural-training  Class :  for  the  definite  training 
of  the  hearing  sense  (by  means  of  Sight-singing, 
Musical  Dictation,  Melody-construction,  etc.), 
and  the  provision  of  regular  opportunities  for 
hearing  good  music. 

II.   The  Choral  Class :  for  the  practice  of  correct  breath- 
ing and  other  points  of  voice-production,  and  for 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD       27 

the  study  of  the  many  unison,  two-part  and  three- 
part  songs  available  for  school  use.  (Regular 
practice  hi  Sight-singing  should  also  form  part  of 
the  work  of  this  class.) 

With  regard  to  the  question  of  the  practicability  of  estab- 
lishing such  classes  in  the  average  school,1  it  is  often  urged 
that  the  time-table  will  not  admit  of  any  considerable 
extension  of  the  time  allotted  to  music.  It  should,  however, 
be  recognized  that  what  is  really  needed  in  most  cases  is  less 
in  the  nature  of  an  increase  than  of  a  redistribution  of  the 
time  given  to  existing  activities.  Most  schools  possess  a 
Singing-class,  and  very  many  also  a  "  Theory  "  class.  The 
time  already  devoted  to  these  may,  and  can,  well  be  utilized 
for  the  more  systematic  and  effective  cultivation  of  the 
pupil's  musical  perception.  The  so-called  "  Theory  "  class 
is,  as  a  rule,  occupied  with  little  more  than  questions  of 
notation,  too  often  divorced  from  the  child's  actual  musical 
experiences,  and  a  change  of  method  here  on  right  lines 
should  result  in  the  class  ceasing  to  be  one  in  which  mere 
symbols  are  learned  and  memorized,  and  becoming  one  in 
which  such  symbols  take  their  rightful  place  with  regard 
to  the  musical  facts  they  represent. 

The  time  allotted  to  each  of  the  classes  (I)  and  (II)  might 
vary,  according  to  school  arrangements,  from  thirty  to  sixty 
minutes  per  week.  In  many  large  Higlvschools  the  time 
now  being  devoted  to  each  class  is  forty  minutes  per  week, 
and  this  basis  of  time  may  be  regarded  as  generally  satis- 
factory. In  the  case  of  the  lowest  forms,  shorter  and  more 
frequent  lessons  are  infinitely  more  valuable,  and  it  is 
recommended  that,  in  the  case  of  quite  young  children,  brief 
daily  lessons,  of  not  more  than  fifteen  minutes,  should  be 
the  rule.  From  the  very  fact,  already  alluded  to,  that 
conditions  vary  so  widely  in  different  schools,  it  is  hardly 
practicable  to  set  forth  in  detail  the  various  stages  into  which 
the  work  to  be  accomplished  by  the  two  types  of  class  now 
under  consideration  should  be  divided.  Such  division  must 
necessarily  depend  largely  upon  the  size  of  the  school  and  the 
ages  of  the  pupils.  In  the  case  of  the  Choral  class  it  is,  save 

1 1  am  here  considering  the  matter  from  the  standpoint  of  girls' 
schools.  A  somewhat  differently  constituted  scheme  would  be  neces- 
sary in  the  case  of  those  for  boys. 


28        THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD 

in  very  large  schools,  usually  sufficient  to  arrange  the  pupils 
in  three  grades:  Junior,  Middle  and  Senior,  the  youngest 
children  —  those  of  Kindergarten  age  —  being  excluded  in 
the  above  distribution,  for  reasons  set  forth  below.  It  is 
better,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  Aural-training  classes 
should  be  graded  more  minutely,  containing,  if  possible, 
not  more  than  about  fifteen  pupils,  in  order  that  the  teacher 
may  give  attention  to  each  member  of  the  class  as  occasion 
demands  —  a  matter  that  is  not  so  pressing  in  the  case  of 
work  on  the  choral  side. 

(a)  Outline  of  Work  in  the  Aural-training  Classes 

Kindergarten  Stage.  —  At  this  stage  the  aural-training 
should  take  the  form  of 

I.  Rhythmic  bodily  movements,  and 
n.   Singing  by  rote  of  simple  nursery-tunes  and  national 
songs,  no  attempt,  as  yet,  being  made  in  the  direc- 
tion of  reading  the  music,  either  from  the  Staff, 
or  from  Sol-fa. 

The  work  should  be  quite  untechnical,  and  should  simply 
have  as  its  object  the  "  laying  up  in  the  children's  minds 
of  a  store  of  [pure  and  healthy]  experiences  to  which  the 
teacher  may  appeal  when  the  more  formal  systematic  study 
of  music  commenees."  l 

The  Rhythmic  movements  should  at  first  be  entirely  free, 
the  spontaneous  response  of  the  children  by  running,  skip- 
ping and  dancing,2  to  the  strong  rhythms  and  marked  char- 
acter of  the  simple  music  played  or  sung  to  them.  As  Miss 
Marie  Salt  well  says,  in  her  interesting  "  Music  and  the 
Young  Child":3  — 

"  The  child's  nervous  system  is  responsive  to  sound  and  rhythm 
at  a  very  early  age,  and  his  normal  and  healthy  development 
requires  it,  as  it  does  exercise,  language,  and  toy -play.  Musical 
education  begins  in  the  cradle  with  the  lullaby  and  nursery -song  of 
the  mother.  This  indirect  training  must  be  continued  in  the  school 

1  Mrs.  J.  Spencer  Curwen.  —  "The  Child  Pianist." 

2  Not  dancing,   I  need  hardly  say,  in  which  the  movements  are 
taught.     They  must  be  the  child's  own  natural  response  to  the  music. 

"Music  and  the  Young  Child."  Appendix  to  Part  I.  of  "Aural 
Culture  based  upon  Musical  Appreciation,"  by  Stewart  Macpherson  and 
Ernest  Read.  (The  Boston  Music  Co.) 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD       29 

—  still  indirect  in  character  in  the  Kindergarten  and  infant  school, 
though  gradually  preparing  for  the  more  intellectual  as  well  as  the 
more  purely  emotional  enjoyment  of  a  later  stage." 

As  the  children  progress,  and  the  ideas  of  pulse,  accent, 
time  and  phrase-rhythm  are  brought  to  their  notice,  the  use 
of  instruments  of  percussion  —  drums,  triangles,  cymbals 
and  tambourines  —  is  most  helpful. 

The  more  definite  mental  realization  of  the  various  kinds 
of  time  and  of  the  divisions  of  the  pulse  may  also  be  assisted 
in  a  marked  manner  by  bodily  movements  at  this  early  point 
in  the  pupil's  work.  Later  on,  in  the  adolescent  stage,  it 
seems  to  me  that  it  is  wiser  to  discontinue  the  use  of  such 
movements  —  at  any  rate,  in  normal  cases;  but  with  the 
young  child  they  are  of  considerable  educational  value,  as 
they  harness  his  natural  excess  of  motor-activity  to  the 
teacher's  own  ends. 

Lower  and  Middle  Forms.  —  During  the  period  succeeding 
that  of  the  Kindergarten,  between  the  ages,  approximately, 
of  seven  and  fifteen  years,  the  more  intellectual  aspects  of 
aural  training  will,  of  necessity,  claim  a  larger  share  of  atten- 
tion. The  pupils  should  then  make  acquaintance  with 
the  element  of  tonality  (or  the  relationships  of  sounds  within 
the  key),  by  means  at  first  of  the  Movable-Do,  or  the 
Tonic  Sol-fa  syllables,  passing  on  in  due  sequence  to  the  men- 
tal realization  of  the  various  keys,  and  their  relationship 
one  to  the  other.  In  this  way,  that  power  of  mentally 
hearing  the  sounds  indicated  by  the  printed  or  written  signs  is 
acquired ,  which  in  itself  is  one  of  the  first  steps  towards  any 
real  musical  progress.1  In  the  course  of  this  work  singing  at 
sight  and  musical  dictation  play  an  important  part,  and  both 
of  these  activities,  even  apart  from  their  musical  importance, 
are  of  the  highest  value  in  the  development  of  mental  con- 
centration, an  even  momentary  lapse  of  attention  being  fatal 
to  success.  Eye,  ear  and  mind  are  here  called  upon  to  act 
in  concert,  and  I  know  of  nothing  which  tends  to  cultivate 
quickness  of  decision  and  accuracy  of  thought  better  than 
systematic  practice  in  both  these  aspects  of  ear-training. 

Side  by  side  with  the  realization  of  pitch  and  key  should 
go  the  grasping  of  the  more  complex  phases  of  time,  rhythm, 

xThe  poor  results  so  often  achieved  in  instrumental  work  are  due, 
in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  simply  to  the  lack  of  this  mental  correlation  of 
sound  with  symbol. 


30        THE   MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF   THE   CHILD 

and  the  elements  of  musical  shape  or  form,  the  aural  study 
of  intervals,  the  recognition  by  ear  of  the  simpler  harmonies 
of  the  key,  and  that  awakening  of  the  creative  instinct  in 
the  pupil  to  which  allusion  has  already  been  made.  But 
it  is  necessary  that  all  this  work,  instead  of  being  divorced 
from  musical  experiences  (as  has  so  often  been  the  case  in  the 
old  "  Theory  "  classes),  should  be  actually  based  upon  real, 
living  music  with  which  the  pupil  is  first  brought  into  sym- 
pathetic contact,  and  afterwards  "  re-sees  "  in  the  light  of 
increased  knowledge  and  growing  aural  perception. 

While  the  more  technical  details  of  the  subject l  are  being 
brought  to  his  notice  in  such  a  way  that  they  are  no  mere 
items  of  "  useful  musical  knowledge,"  but  a  real  development 
of  his  hearing  powers,  the  more  aesthetic  side  of  "  Apprecia- 
tive "  study  should  be  cared  for  regularly  by  the  teacher. 
The  class  then  should  become,  from  time  to  time,  what  may 
be  described  as  a  genuine  "  Musical  Appreciation  class,"  in 
which  —  as  I  have  suggested  earlier  in  these  remarks  —  the 
teacher  should  play  some  attractive  musical  composition, 
for  the  purpose  of  studying  its  broader  outlines  with  his 
pupils,  and  of  encouraging  an  appreciation  of  its  character, 
its  plan  and  its  many  features  of  interest.2 

With  the  youngest  forms  (as  was  stated  on  page  24),  the 
aim  should  be  to  make  these  classes  supply  the  more  recrea- 
tive element,  and  to  stimulate  the  imagination.  Later  on,  the 
pupils  should  be  made  to  realize  that  a  more  insistent  call 
upon  their  faculties  of  observation  is  a  natural  and  legitimate 
demand  of  their  study.  By  means  of  the  Appreciation 
class  the  pupils  may  gradually  be  brought  into  close  com- 
munion with  much  beautiful  and  worthy  music  which  other- 
wise would  be  a  sealed  book  to  them  until  such  time  as  they 
should  be  able  to  laboriously  decipher  it  for  themselves 
at  the  keyboard.  At  the  same  time  they  gradually  become 
aware  of  the  artistic  application  of  much  of  the  more  technical 

1  Although  no  specific  mention  has  been  made  of  what  is  usually 
known  as  "Elements  of  Music,"  but  which  would  be  better  termed 
"Elements  of  Musical  Notation,"  it  is,  of  course,  assumed  that  such 
purely  notational  matters  as  Time-signatures,  Key-signatures,  abbrevi- 
ations, ornaments,  etc.,  would  be  introduced  in  their  necessary  connec- 
tion both  with  the  class- work  and  with  the  instrumental  lessons. 

2  In  undertaking  such  work,  the  teacher  should  seek  to  implant  in 
the  pupils'  minds  the  sense  of  personal  relationship  towards  the  great 
masters,  so  that  they  may  realize  —  however  vaguely  at  first  —  that 
music,  in  actual  fact,  is  human  expression,  one  of  the  many  channels 


THE   MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD       31 

side  of  their  musical  education,  which,  by  this  means,  is  seen 
in  its  proper  focus. 

Upper  Forms.  —  Where  the  aural  training  of  the  pupils 
has  been  cared  for  systematically  throughout  their  earlier 
years,  the  work  in  these  forms,  besides  including  the  more 
advanced  aspects  of  pitch,  time,  rhythm  and  construction, 
should  deal  with  the  elements  of  keyboard  and  written 
Harmony  —  always  upon  a  distinctly  aural  basis.  The  kind 
of  constructive  work  in  Harmony  so  often  carried  out  in 
school,  in  which  little  or  no  appeal  is  made  to  the  ear,  and 
which  results  merely  in  the  "  architectural  "  piling-up  of 
chords  on  a  figured-bass  —  chords  of  whose  sound  the  pupil 
is  frequently  in  complete  and  blissful  ignorance  —  is  abso- 
lutely valueless  from  a  musical  point  of  view. 

On  the  "  Appreciation  "  side  a  stage  should  have  been 
reached  at  which  the  Sonatas,  Symphonies,  etc.,  of  the  great 
masters  could  profitably  be  studied,  and  the  pupils  should  be 
in  a  fit  condition  to  benefit  from  good  chamber  or  orchestral 
concerts,  and  also  from  lectures  by  specialists  on  the  great 
masterpieces,  particularly  in  view  of  such  concerts. 

i 
(b)  Work  in  the  Choral  Classes 

Junior  Division.  —  This  class  should  be  planned  so  as  to 
include  most  of  the  youngest  children  above  Kindergarten 
age,  and  in  it  the  aim  should  be  to  teach  them  (a)  to  breathe 
properly,  a  point  of  great  importance,  not  only  musically, 
as  the  foundation  of  pure  vocal  tone,  but  physically;  (b)  to 
sing  sweetly  and  with  simple,  unaffected  expression  and  clear 
enunciation,  the  many  unison  songs  available  for  school  use, 
such  as  the  folk-songs  of  all  countries,  and  certain  selected 
songs. 

Middle  Division.  —  The  work  here  should  include,  as  in 
the  Junior  Division,  breathing  exercises  and  exercises  for 

through  which  the  thoughts  of  men  are  communicated  to  the  world. 
Here,  the  judicious  use  of  biographical  and  historical  details  would  have 
to  be  considered.  It  would  be  sufficient,  in  the  majority  of  cases, 
for  the  teacher  merely  to  sketch  in  a  few  brief  and  simple  words  the 
surroundings  of  the  composer  whose  music  might  be  the  subject  of 
study,  and  the  conditions  under  which  he  lived  and  worked;  by  so 
doing  he  would  help  very  materially  in  placing  his  pupils  in  an  attitude 
of  sympathy  towards  the  music  itself.  But,  as  stated  in  Part  II 
of  "Aural  Culture  based  upon  Musical  Appreciation,"  "in  no  case 
should  the  teacher  yield  to  the  temptation  to  allow  mere  '  story-telling ' 
to  usurp  the  time  that  should  be  devoted  to  a  study  of  the  music." 


32        THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD 

gaining  control  and  flexibility  of  the  vocal  organs.  The 
material  for  practice  and  performance  might  well  include,  in 
addition  to  unison  songs,  Rounds  for  equal  voices,  and  other 
pieces  in  which  the  voices  are  divided  into  first  and  second 
trebles  (or  trebles  and  altos) .  In  making  this  division  of  the 
class,  great  care  should  be  taken  not  to  strain  voices  naturally 
lower  in  pitch,  by  making  them  sing  higher  than  they  can 
with  perfect  ease.  The  teacher  should  also  exercise  great 
discretion  in  the  choice  of  music,  and  should  see  to  it  that 
only  compositions  of  a  high  standard  of  artistic  merit  are  used 
in  the  class. 

In  all  the  classes,  careful  attention  should  be  given  not 
only  to  pure  production  of  the  voices,  but  to  those  matters  of 
phrasing  and  expression  which  are  the  basis  of  artistic  per- 
formance. 

Senior  Division.  —  In  this  division,  in  addition  to  work 
of  a  similar  character  to  that  undertaken  in  the  Middle 
Division  of  the  school,  it  might  be  found  possible  to  reach  a 
standard  of  execution  sufficient  for  the  study  of  a  short 
Cantata  for  equal  voices.  In  large  classes,  moreover,  three- 
part  songs  might  be  practised  with  advantage,  but  it  need 
hardly  be  said  that  the  feasibility  of  this  would  depend  largely 
upon  the  downward  compass  of  the  voices  to  which  was 
entrusted  the  lowest  (or  Alto)  part.  The  teacher  should  be 
most  careful  to  avoid  strain  at  either  end  of  the  voice. 

Some  sight-singing  should  be  done  regularly  in  all  the 
Singing-classes,  aiid  to  the  end  that  this  may  be  carried  out 
without  conflict  of  idea  and  method,  and  in  order  to  avoid 
overlapping,  the  Singing-class  teacher  should  be  in  close  and 
constant  touch  with  the  teacher  of  the  Aural  training  classes.1 

I  need  hardly  say  that,  throughout  the  whole  school- 
period,  it  is  of  the  first  importance  that  the  class-work, 
whether  in  Aural  training  or  in  Choral-singing,  should  be 
properly  correlated  with  the  instrumental  lessons  that  the 
various  pupils  might  be  taking  ;  consequently  it  is,  as  I  have 
stated  above,  vitally  necessary  that  the  several  teachers 
engaged  in  dealing  with  musical  subjects  in  the  school  should 
have  constant  opportunities  of  comparing  notes,  and  so  of 
acting  in  concert.  Frequently,  it  must  be  confessed,  such 
teachers  carry  out  their  duties  in  complete  ignorance  of  all 

1  Obviously,  in  many  smaller  schools  the  two  sides  of  the  work  might 
be  undertaken  by  one  and  the  same  teacher. 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD       33 

that  is  going  on  outside  their  own  special  departments,  to 
the  serious  and  often  irretrievable  detriment  of  the  work  as  a 
whole. 

Concluding  Remarks 

Such,  in  rough  outline,  is  a  plan  of  work,  the  adoption  of 
which  would,  in  my  opinion,  tend  to  awaken  a  real,  living 
interest  in  music  itself,  among  our  young  people,  and  go 
far  towards  creating  more  discriminating  and  intelligent 
audiences  in  the  future.  I  realize  that  it  is  not  an  easy  task  to 
carry  out  heroic  measures  of  reform.  That  there  will  be  prej- 
udices to  be  overcome,  apathy  to  be  combated,  even  hostility 
to  be  met,  one  knows  only  too  well.  Quite  recently,  an 
eminent  educationist,  who  is  wholly  in  sympathy  with  the 
ideas  set  forth  in  this  article,  told  me  of  an  admirable  young 
teacher  who,  when  found  by  her  superior  mistress  playing  to 
her  pupils  and  giving  them  some  sort  of  intelligent  insight  into 
the  features  of  the  compositions  they  were  studying,  was  told 
that  she  was  "  wasting  time,"  that  the  pupils  were  to  play  and 
she  to  listen,  and  that  if  she  did  that  sort  of  thing  again  she 
would  be  dismissed  !  The  old  idea,  that  the  only  thing  which 
matters  is  that  music-pupils  must  learn  so  many  pieces  per 
term,  to  show  off  before  admiring  relatives  and  friends,  still 
holds  sway,  unfortunately,  in  far  too  many  instances,  and 
difficulty  and  opposition  will  doubtless  be  met  with  by  those 
who  desire  to  carry  out  really  educative  principles  in  the 
musical  curriculum. 

I  know,  too,  that  much  will  need  to  be  done  before  many 
parents  will  look  with  sufficient  seriousness  upon  the  aspects  of 
musical  education  which  we  have  been  considering,  and  the 
advertisement  of  the  enterprising  local  teacher  who  guaran- 
teed "  thirty  cheerful  tunes  "  at  the  end  of  a  term,  is  still,  in 
principle,  the  index  of  what  is  too  often  required  and  de- 
manded ! 

On  the  other  hand,  that  some  such  scheme  of  work  as  I 
have  adumbrated  should  meet  with  the  sympathy  of  those 
interested  in  the  training  of  the  young,  would  be,  I  think,  a 
matter  upon  which  one  should  be  able  to  count ;  since,  after 
all,  such  a  scheme  only  means  the  application  to  music  of 
methods  already  applied  successfully  to  other  branches  of 
education.  And  I  would  like  to  impress  upon  those  respon- 
sible for  the  curriculum  in  our  schools  that  the  kind  of  study 


34       THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD 

which  has  been  outlined  in  this  article  does  not  only  concern 
the  professional  student ;  it  is  a  necessity  for  all,  if  we  would 
make  music  worthy  —  as  indeed  it  is  —  of  an  acknowledged 
place  in  modern  education,  instead  of  being  relegated  to  the 
position  of  a  mere  amiable  pastime,  the  time  devoted  to  which 
is  grudged  —  and,  as  things  are  at  present,  more  or  less 
naturally  grudged  —  as  entailing  a  diverting  of  attention 
from  subjects  of  apparently  greater  value. 

Educationists  are  beginning  to  see  that  the  "  appreciative  " 
side  of  music-study  affords  a  basis  for  cultivating  the  child's 
power  of  observation,  which  in  many  ways  can  hardly  be 
surpassed ;  and  even  if  the  matter  ended  there,  my  plea  for 
this  kind  of  training  would  have  established  its  claim  to  con- 
sideration. But  that  is  by  no  means  all ;  I  am  convinced 
that  along  some  such  lines  lies  the  one  chance  of  arousing  the 
latent  musical  faculties  of  the  majority  of  our  young  people, 
of  giving  them  a  real  insight  into  the  subtler  aesthetic  and 
intellectual  beauties  of  the  art,  and  of  cultivating  a  true 
interest  in  music  —  qud  music  —  amongst  the  great  bulk  of 
the  community,  where,  as  I  have  remarked  in  another  place, 
I  feel  "  there  exists  a  vast  mass  of  musical  intelligence  which 
only  needs  a  stimulus  in  the  right  direction  for  it  to  become 
a  most  valuable  and  powerful  factor  in  the  musical  life  of 
the  nation."  1 

1  "Music  and  its  Appreciation,  or  the  Foundations  of  True  Listen- 
ing," by  Stewart  Macpherson.  (London  :  Joseph  Williams,  Ltd.) 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF   THE   CHILD      35 


II 

THE  AWAKENING  OF  AN  INTELLIGENT  APPRECIATION 
OF  MUSIC;  THE  TEACHER'S  PART 

I  HAVE  already  endeavored  to  show  the  value,  in  any 
sound  scheme  of  musical  education,  of  "  appreciative " 
teaching,  and  to  indicate  how  by  its  means  the  child's  powers 
of  observation  may  be  rapidly  and  surely  cultivated,  and 
an  intelligent  response  to  the  beauties  of  music  awakened, 
even  in  the  case  of  many  who  otherwise  would  be  left  to  fall 
back  for  their  musical  impressions  upon  their  own  feeble 
struggles  against  heavy  odds  in  the  hours  of  piano-practice. 
Having  regard  to  the  ever-increasing  technical  difficulty 
and  complexity  of  modern  music,  it  should  be  obvious 
that  it  is  only  the  comparatively  few  who  will  ever  be 
able  to  cope  with  the  more  important  instrumental 
works  —  at  any  rate,  to  play  them  effectively  and  well. 

Dr.  Lyttelton,  the  Headmaster  of  Eton,  not  long  ago  said 
most  truly  that  "  the  main  point  to  be  emphasized  at  present 
is  that  ordinary  musical  education  means  training  children 
to  become  good  listeners."  Precisely;  and  by  making  this 
thought  the  underlying  motive  of  our  teaching,  we  should 
be  giving  those  same  children  a  possession  for  life  of  the 
highest  possible  value,  and  be  doing  something  at  least  for 
the  improvement  of  the  general  standard  of  discernment  and 
critical  judgment,  which  at  present  is  so  often  based  upon  a 
flimsy  and  worthless  foundation.  In  a  book  on  the  education 
of  a  music-lover,  published  in  America  a  year  or  two  ago, 
its  author,  Mr.  W.  H.  Dickinson,  says : 

"  It  does  not  seem  to  me  to  require  argument  to  prove  that  the 
dissemination  of  good  taste  in  art  is  an  obligation  upon  college 
and  school.  If  such  argument  is  needed,  there  is  no  better  summary 
than  that  of  President  Frederick  Burk,  of  the  San  Francisco  State 
Normal  School.  'The  world,'  he  says,  'uses  vocations  as  a  means 


36        THE   MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF   THE   CHILD 

of  bread-winning,  but  the  world  also  uses  music,  art,  literature, 
the  drama  just  as  intensely,  just  as  essentially,  just  as  relevantly. 
Because  the  world  uses  religion,  art,  music,  the  drama,  civic  ideals, 
etc.,  these  are  as  legitimate  and  important  goals  of  education  as 
bread-  winning. '" 

It  must  be  patent  to  all  of  us,  if  we  give  the  matter  a  mo- 
ment's thought,  that  the  faculty  of  hearing,  of  listening,  so 

as  really  to  make  sense  of  what  we  hear,  is 
Need  for  the  one  faat  requires  steady  and  regular  cultiva- 
tiie^he^ng  t*on>  Fon(lness  for  music  —  or  rather,  the 

sense  experience  of  a  certain  sense  of  pleasure  in 

hearing  it  —  is  not  of  necessity  a  proof  of 
judgment  or  true  appreciation,  or  even  of  the  possession  of 
the  qualifications  for  true  listening.  It  is  a  necessary  pre- 
liminary condition ;  but  no  more.  The  intelligent  appre- 
hending of  music  requires  much  that  goes  far  beyond  this ; 
it  requires,  as  we  have  seen,  the  healthy  development  of 
the  hearing  sense,  that  sense  which  too  often  is  allowed  to 
lie  dormant,  untrained  and  undeveloped  save  in  the  case  of 
the  exceptional  few,  during  the  most  sensitive  years  of  life  — 
that  is  to  say,  during  the  years  of  childhood. 

It  is  true,  I  think,  that  the  majority  of  the  community 
regard  the  act  of  listening  to  music  as  something  at  once 
simple,  obvious  and  familiar,  and  that  the  idea  of  any  prep- 
aration for  such  listening  comes  home  to  them  with  a  feeling 
even  of  strangeness  and  of  novelty.  But  it  should  be 
clearly  borne  in  mind  that  the  sensitiveness  of  ear  which 
is  necessary  for  the  true  perception  and  realization  of  music 
must  by  no  means  be  confused  with  the  physical  sensa- 
tion which  certain  classes  of  composition  produce  with 
tolerable  ease  in  the  case  of  many  even  totally  uncultured 
persons  —  uncultured,  I  mean,  so  far  as  the  art  of  music 
is  concerned.  "It  is  not  by  any  means  an  infallible  proof 
of  a  really  musical  organization,  or  of  a  power  of  appre- 
hending music,  that  we  should  find  such  a  piece  as  the  '  Ride 
of  the  Valkyries,'  or  Tschaikowski's  '  1812  '  overture  setting 
up  a  certain  kind  of  excitement  in  our  nervous  system,  or 
that  we  should  find  ourselves  instinctively  beating  time  to  the 
easily-recognized  rhythm  of  some  (perhaps  perfectly  artistic) 
dance-measure."  1 

1  "Music  and  its  Appreciation/'  page  2. 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD       37 

If  music  is  to  become  a  pursuit  or  a  recreation  worthy 
of  the  serious  attention  of  the  more  cultured  minds  among 
us,  the  art  of  listening  must  consist  of  much  more  than  this ; 
it  must  connote  the  power  of  following  more  or  less  completely 
the  unfolding  of  the  composer's  plan,  of  observing  and 
remembering  his  main  ideas  so  that  their  subsequent  develop- 
ment may  become  a  source  of  delight  to  us,  of  taking  note  of 
the  various  shades  of  instrumental  coloring,  and — by  no 
means  least  —  it  must  include  the  ability  to 
recognize  the  relationships  of  pitch  suffi- 
ciently  well  so  as  to  be  able,  in  some  measure  listening 
at  any  rate,  mentally  to  see  both  the  melody 
and  the  harmony  of  the  music  to  which  we  are  giving  our 
attention.  Some  may  be  tempted  to  object  to  much  of 
what  I  have  said  —  not,  perhaps,  in  theory,  but  so  far  as 
it  relates  in  practice  to  the  bulk  of  the  "  body  politic,"  that 
vast  army  constituting  the  staple  of  our  concert-room  audi- 
ences, and  to  reply  to  me  that  such  persons  can  never  be 
expected  to  do  more  than  a  fraction  of  what  I  have  just  been 
setting  forth  as  necessary  to  true  listening. 

That  very  few  amateurs,  and  not  all  professional  musi- 
cians, are  able  so  to  use  their  ears  is  hardly  open  to  question ; 
but  that  it  is  an  impossibility,  given  certain  preliminary 
conditions,  I  most  emphatically  deny,  from  experience  gained 
at  first  hand  over  a  fairly  large  area  of  operations. 

A  recent  article  in  The  Times  on  "  The  habit  of  listening," 
says: 

"There  is  no  doubt  whatever  that  many  of  us,  simply  through 
lack  of  the  habit  of  listening,  fail  to  hear  more  than  a  portion  — 
sometimes  an  extremely  small  portion  —  of  a  composer's  thoughts. 
.  .  .  The  natural  man  can  only  produce  one  note  at  a  time  of 
his  natural  instrument,  his  voice ;  and  it  is  only  very  gradually 
that  he  attains  to  the  power  of  distinguishing  readily  and  clearly, 
the  acoustically  less  prominent  elements  in  simultaneous  sounds. 
Much,  no  doubt,  may  be  hoped  from  the  newer  educational  methods 
which  are  little  by  little  winning  their  way  into  schools ;  we  are 
coming  to  see  that  appreciation  is  more  valuable  than  perform- 
ance." 

If  it  is  permissible  to  venture  upon  an  analogy  which, 
though  not  entirely  exact  at  all  points,  is  sufficiently  so  for  the 
present  purpose,  one  might  say  that  the  position  of  the 
average  listener  in  the  presence  of  music  is  in  a  very  real  sense 
that  of  the  playgoer  who  witnesses  a  play  in  a  foreign  language 


38        THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD 

with  which  he  is  either  totally  or  in  part  unacquainted. 
Such  an  one  does,  it  is  true,  gain  a  vague,  general  impression 
of  the  meaning  and  purport  of  the  play  from  the  gestures  of 
the  actors,  and  the  varying  tones  of  their  voices ;  but  of  the 
expressiveness  and  the  power  of  the  language  used  by  them 
he  knows  practically  nothing.  For  him  charm  of  phrase 
and  appropriateness  of  diction  bring  no  thrill  of  delight,  and 
awaken  no  answering  echo  of  admiration.  So  with  music : 
"  in  the  case  of  the  many  who  throng  our  concert-rooms,  we 
shall  not  be  very  wide  of  the  mark  in  saying  that  what  they 
hear  reaches  them  in  a  somewhat  similar  way;  the  music 
comes  to  them  purely  as  a  physical  sensation.  A  kind  of 
general  impression  is  produced,  which  presumably  affords 
them  a  certain  degree  of  pleasure ;  but  it  is  quite  incontest- 
able that  (just  as  in  the  case  of  the  play  in  a  foreign  tongue) 
the  pure  unalloyed  delight  in  the  composer's  art,  arising  from 
an  appreciation  of  the  actual  language  he  uses,  and  of  the 
development  and  interplay  of  his  ideas,  is  something  outside 
the  experience  of  such  hearers."  l 

For,  after  all,  the  listening  to  a  serious  musical  work,  so  as 
to  make  sense  of  it,  is  a  much  more  exacting  matter  than  most 
people  are  disposed  to  think.     We  can  stand 
True  listening        before  a  picture  or  a  statue  as  long  as  we 
needs  concen-         -.,  -,  f ,      .      .,   ,    .,     .,       1  ^   .,   1 G      ,  .  , 

trated  attention  llke>  an(*  take  m  detail  after  detail,  by  which 
means  our  impression  of  it  all  becomes  more 
definite.  But  music  passes  us  by  in  a  flash;  it  has  to  be 
conditioned  by  time ;  no  sooner  is  one  series  of  impressions 
partly  imprinted  on  our  mind  than  it  has  to  make  way  for 
another,  and  that  for  another,  and  so  on ;  and  we  often  come 
away,  particularly  after  a  first  hearing,  with  only  a  clouded 
idea  of  what  it  has  all  been  about.  If  that  is  to  some  extent 
the  case  with  even  the  trained  ear,  what  must  the  result 
be  upon  the  ear  which  is  deaf  to  the  very  idioms  of  the 
language  to  which  it  is  listening  ? 

Now,  supposing  it  is  granted  that  much  of  what  I  have  said 
is  true,  it  may  very  reasonably  be  asked  what  one  has  to 
suggest  as  a  means  of  improving  this  condition  of  things. 
Some  words  of  a  valued  colleague  at  the  Royal  Academy  of 
Music  2  will  indicate  the  direction  in  which  we  should  look  for 
such  improvement.  He  says  : 

"Music  and  its  Appreciation,"  page  2. 
2  Dr.  H.  W.  Richards,  in  the  R.A.M.  Club  Magazine,  January,  1909. 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF   THE   CHILD       39 

"It  is  self-evident  that  special  attention  should  be  directed  to 
the  child  and  its  musical  surroundings.     We  reap  as  a  rule  what 
we  sow,  and  how  can  we  hope  to  gather  a  rich  j^e  Q^^  an(j 
harvest  in  any  department  of  life  where  the  seed-   -tg  musicai 
time  has  been  overlooked  ?    The  early  impressions   surroundings 
that  can  be  made  on  a  child  are  so  important 
that  they  claim  more  than  the  scanty  notice  which  too  often  they 
receive." 

After  showing  how  so  elementary  a  fact  as  this  has  been 
very  long  in  being  grasped  by  those  who  have  dealt  with 
musical  education,  and  referring  to  the  "  horrible  hours, 
often  alone  in  a  cold  room,  spent  in  practising  five-finger 
exercises  and  scales,  a  dreary  penance  going  by  the  name 
of  '  doing  our  music,'  "  the  same  writer  goes  on  to  say : 

"The  gradual  awakening  of  a  child's  intelligence,  and  early 
culture  on  right  lines,  will  make  music  perhaps  one  of  the  chief 
pleasures  of  its  existence,  and  soak  into  its  very  being.  .  .  . 
Its  mind  must  during  these  early  years  be  awakened  to  the  beauty 
of  good  music,  so  that  it  will,  as  it  were,  breathe  the  best  air  from 
its  earliest  days,  and  the  foundation  of  its  knowledge  be  so  soundly 
planned  and  laid  that  no  early  method  will  need  to  be  corrected 
and  no  lesson  unlearned." 

I  would  echo  these  words  with  my  whole  heart,  and  say 
again  and  again,  "  Begin  with  the  child,  who  is  the  father 
of  the  man  "  ;  there  lies  the  one  chance,  the  one  great  hope  of 
reaching  all  that  some  of  us  are  ardently  striving  for.  Thus, 
as  I  said  before,  we  find  ourselves  face  to  face  with  the  neces- 
sity of  doing  something  towards  getting  our  pupils,  during 
their  sensitive  early  years,  into  real  and  effective  communion 
with  music  —  music  well  played  and  sympathetically  ex- 
plained by  a  cultured  and  enthusiastic  teacher. 

Now  as  to  the  qualifications  necessary  for  the  teacher 
who  seeks  to  undertake  this  most  interesting  and  hopeful 
kind  of  work.     First,  it  is  clear  that  he  must 
be  a  musical  enthusiast,  one  who  delights  in  «  ^redative  "^ 
music  himself,  and  is  desirous  of  passing  on  teaching 
that    delight    and    enthusiasm    to    others. 
Secondly,  he  must  love  his  teaching,  and  not  look  upon  it 
as  a  sort  of  penance,  to  be  endured  simply  for  the  sake  of 
its  monetary  reward.     "  The  interest  in  the  extension  of 
musical  appreciation,"  says  Mr.   Dickinson  again,   "  once 
taking  root  as  a  conviction,  becomes  an  enthusiasm.  .  .  . 
Nowhere  is  it  more  beautifully  manifested  than  among 


40       THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD 

the  noble  group  of  obscure  private  teachers,  who,  at  stated 
times,  gather  their  little  company  of  pupils  and  talk  to  them 
on  the  deeper  things  of  their  art.  This  is  indeed  a  service 
that  '  blesseth  him  that  gives  and  him  that  takes.'  .  .  . 
When  music  is  felt  by  one  of  its  votaries  to  be  a  source  of 
unalloyed  happiness  and  purification  of  spirit  he  is  fired 
with  something  like  a  missionary  zeal."  Thirdly,  the 
teacher  must  be  a  musician  of  good  all-round  knowledge  — 
not  merely  a  pianist,  or  singer,  or  violinist  —  but  a  musician 
in  the  best  and  widest  sense  of  the  term. 

For  it  is  clear  that,  in  dealing  with  Musical  Appreciation 
work,  such  subjects  as  Form,  Harmony  and  Musical  History 
must  be  more  or  less  "  at  his  fingers  '  ends,"  otherwise  his 
chances  of  interesting  his  class  will  be  small.  Moreover,  he 
must  have  a  tolerably  extensive  acquaintance  with  the  works 
of  the  great  masters,  and  must  know  them  well  enough  to 
quote  aptly  from  time  to  time.  The  pieces  he  plays  to  his 
class  must  be  well  played,  and  most  teachers  of  any  ability  at 
all  should  be  able  to  play  all  the  illustrations  required  for  at 
least  the  more  elementary  stages,  as  these  would  not  require 
excessive  technical  attainments.  On  the  other  hand,  some 
little  difficulty  might  very  naturally  be  experienced  by  many 
teachers  where  a  more  advanced  grade  of  work  necessitated 
examples  of  compositions  requiring  a  command  of  the  key- 
board which  they  could  not  reach,  with  the  very  limited 
time  at  their  disposal  for  their  own  practice.  Where  such 
happened  to  be  the  case,  the  teacher  would  —  in  my  opinion 
—  find  a  most  helpful  auxiliary  in  one  of  the  many  "  Play- 
ers "  now  available,  upon  which  it  is  possible  to  play  hundreds 
of  the  best-known  classical  and  modern  works.  The  control 
of  such  an  instrument  is  acquired  in  a  very  short  space  of 
time  by  a  really  musical  person,  and  I  feel  most  strongly 
that,  once  the  erroneous  idea  can  be  dissipated  that  it  is  a 
purely  unsympathetic  and  expressionless  piece  of  mechanism, 
its  future  as  an  educational  factor  will  be  assured,  and  its 
value  in  preparing  the  way  for  the  appreciation  of  the  per- 
formance of  the  great  artist  duly  recognized  and  established.1 
In  connection  with  the  Musical  Appreciation  class,  however, 

1  If  the  "Player"  were  so  used,  it  would  be  well  for  the  teacher  to 
point  out  (by  playing  certain  passages  in  the  course  of  the  music  with 
his  own  fingers)  what  the  mechanical  instrument  cannot  do,  so  that  the 
pupils  might  realize  the  difference  when  they  go  to  concerts,  and  thus 
appreciate  more  clearly  what  the  artist  alone  can  do. 


THE   MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD       41 

the  great  matter  is  that  —  whether  the  teacher  plays  the 
illustrations  himself  or  uses  a  "  Player,"  or  presses  into  his 
service  some  of  his  more  talented  pupils  —  such  illustrations 
should  be  sufficiently  well  rendered  as  to  interest  the  listeners 
and  grip  their  attention,  and,  moreover,  to  serve  as  a  good 
model  for  their  own  efforts  at  interpretation. 

To  sum  up  :  the  duty  of  the  "  Appreciation  "  teacher  will 
be  to  seek  to  open  the  ears  of  his  pupil  "  to  behold  wondrous 
things  "  as  yet  unheard  by  him,  simply 
for  the  reason  that  those  very  ears  have  The,, 
not  been  brought  into  condition  to  observe  ^  « 
and  to  perceive.  Do  not  some  of  us  know  ear  " 
what  it  is  to  have  walked  along  the  country- 
side with  some  artist  friend,  and  to  have  felt  positively 
ashamed  that  we  did  not  see  one-hundredth  part  of  what 
he  saw?  —  that  touch  of  color  on  the  roof  of  the  old  barn, 
the  glint  of  the  sunlight  along  the  meadow  by  the  stream  ? 
When,  however,  we  are  shown  how  to  use  our  eyes,  then 
it  is  that  we  begin  to  realize  a  little  of  what  the  painter  sees, 
and  are  able  to  some  extent  to  look  at  things  from  his  point 
of  view.  So,  surely,  is  it  with  music;  one  knows  in  one's 
own  experience  something  of  the  joy  that  comes  to  the 
earnest  student  when  one  has,  perchance,  been  able,  by  just 
a  word,  to  draw  his  attention  to  some  beautiful  point  which 
in  all  probability  he  would  have  missed,  for  the  reason  that 
his  mind  was  not  attuned  —  so  to  speak  —  to  the  task  of 
observing  such  things. 

How,  then,  is  the  teacher  to  help  his  pupil  to  meet  the 
music  in  a  spirit  of  alertness,  so  that  the  more  subtle  points 
of  interest  and  beauty  in  the  composer's  work  may  not 
pass  him  by  unheeded,   unrecognized,   unen joyed?     First 
and  foremost,  he  must  avoid  the  danger  of  "  shooting  too 
far  over  his  pupil's  head."     In  connection 
with  this,  I  may  say  that  certain  schemes  The  management 
for  children's   concerts   which  I   have  seen  °f  APPreciation 
,,«.•..  .,     ,.  •  -,       -,         •        classes  —  The 

sketched  in  journals  dealing  with  education  Teacher's  aims 

seem  to  me  to  be  lamentably  deficient  in 
any  sort  of  idea  as  to  what  can  be  grasped  by  the  child-mind : 
in  such  schemes  I  have  found  elaborate  works  by  Schumann, 
Brahms,  Wagner,  and  others  calmly  proposed  for  the  chil- 
dren's consumption  —  an  error  of  judgment  which  a  little 
practical  acquaintance  with  the  average  child's  powers  of 


42        THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD 

assimilation  would  have  prevented.  No  !  it  is  of  the  highest 
importance  that  the  teacher  should  keep  at  first  well  within 
that  child's  existing  range  of  experiences,  making  him  gradu- 
ally begin  to  stand  on  tiptoe  —  so  to  speak.  By  such  means 
his  intelligence  is  awakened  naturally ;  and  he  is  encouraged, 
instead  of  being  disheartened  and  even  repelled  by  being 
allowed  to  wallow  in  a  sea  of  difficulties.  The  teacher's  aim 
—  it  seems  to  me  —  must  therefore  be : 

I.  To  awaken  the   sympathy  and  to  cultivate  the 

imagination  of  his  pupil. 

II.  To  help  him  to  perceive  the  composer's  art,  to 
follow  his  plan,  and  to  take  an  interest  hi  the 
development  and  interplay  of  his  ideas. 
HI.  To  help  him  to  recognize  the  particular  message 
of  each  of  the  great  composers  and  of  each  of 
the  great  periods  in  art,  by  showing  him  some- 
thing of  the  particular  style  and  idiom  exemplified 
by  each. 

In  other  words,  he  will  seek  to  interest  him  along  three 
main  parallel  lines,  namely,  the  imaginative,  the  construc- 
tional and  the  historical.  With  young  children  the  first  of 
these  will  be  followed,  to  the  virtual  exclusion  of  the  other 
two,  and  much  simple,  imaginative  music  will  be  played  to  the 
pupil  almost  entirely  without  verbal  comment  on  the  techni- 
cal side.  The  wise  teacher  will  on  no  account  force  his  emo- 
tional susceptibility  by  asking  him  to  describe  what  he 
"  feels  "  !  —  but  will  just  let  him  drink  in  the  music  and 
think  about  it  as  he  likes.  At  a  somewhat  more  advanced 
age  the  pupil  may  —  as  I  have  already  said  elsewhere  —  well 
be  called  upon  to  look  somewhat  closer  into  the  texture  of 
the  music,  to  gain  some  little  grasp  of  its  form,  to  recognize 
its  period  and  style,  to  follow  the  uses  to  which  the  composer 
puts  his  chief  themes  —  the  tracing  of  the  adventures  of  his 
principal  characters,  so  to  speak  —  and  thus  consciously 
to  appreciate  (i.e.,  apprehend)  some,  at  least,  of  the  many 
interesting  features  of  the  music  which  a  capable  and  re- 
sourceful teacher  can  so  fruitfully  bring  to  his  notice.  As 
a  modern  writer  has  said  : 

"  There  are  periods  and  degrees  of  development  in  the  minds 
of  children  to  which  correspond  different  manners  of  teaching 
....  as  we  make  appeal  to  one  or  other  of  the  growing 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD       43 

faculties.  The  first  stage  is  imaginative,  the  second  calls  not 
only  upon  the  imagination  and  memory,  but  upon  the  understand- 
ing, and  the  third,  which  is  the  beginning  of  a  period  of  fruition, 
begins  to  exercise  the  judgment,  and  to  give  some  ideas  concern- 
ing principles  of  ...  criticism." l 

In  dealing  with  the  "  constructional  "  side,  the  element 
of  form  or  design  may  be  brought  home  to  Simple  ideas 
a  child's  mind  very  simply  by  the  teacher  of  construction 
playing  him  some  such  well-known  tune  as  "  Barbara  Allen." 


Then,  by  a  few  words  suited  to  his  understanding,  the  first 
step  could  well  be  taken  in  showing  him  that  pieces  of  music 
have  a  shape;  that,  for  example,  such  things  usually  begin 
and  end  in  the  same  key;  that,  as  it  were,  after  starting 
away  from  home  on  a  walk  or  an  excursion,  we  naturally 
make  our  "  return  journey,"  and  at  last  land  safely  home 
again.  By  some  such  illustration  as  this,  the  intelligent 
teacher  could  readily  and  effectively  appeal  to  the  child- 
mind. 

With  a  class  of  young  pupils,  it  would  be  quite  easy  for  the 
teacher  to  show  how  the  two  phrases  of  the  tune  are  depend- 
ent one  on  the  other,  by  stopping  at  the  end  of  the  first  four 
bars  and  asking  if  it  sounded  finished,  or  not.  The  answer 
would  almost  certainly  be  in  the  negative,  and  from  that 
the  teacher  could  make  clear  to  them  two  simple  facts  under- 
lying all  musical  plan  or  structure,  viz.  : 

I.  The  idea  of  some  sort  of  balance,  arrived  at  by  one 
period  in  some  way  answering  another,  and 


1  Janet  Erskine  Stuart  — "The  Education  of  Catholic  Girls." 
mans  and  Co.) 


(Long- 


44        THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD 

n.  The  idea  of  the  importance  of  a  Tonic,  and  the 
impossibility  of  a  completely  satisfactory  con- 
clusion anywhere  else  than  upon  that  Tonic 
note,  or  Tonic  chord. 

The  next  step  in  the  teaching  of  Form  or  Design  in  music 
might  well  be  that  of  drawing  the  attention  of  the  class  to 
the  fact  that,  although  many  little  tunes  like  "  Barbara 
Allen  "  are  constructed  on  the  plan  of  one  phrase  answering 
another  in  this  very  uniform  way,  others  of  greater  length 
have  a  somewhat  different  shape,  a  shape  which  might  well 
be  described  as  that  of  the  "  Musical  sandwich  "  : 

"CHARLIE  is  MY  DARLING" 


It  will  be  noticed  that  the  two  foregoing  illustrations  are 
both  national  tunes,  and  I  should  like  to  say,  in  passing, 
that  illustrations  cannot  be  taken  from  a  better  source.  They 
are  nearly  all  beautiful,  all  are  simple,  and  I  know  nothing 
that  will  have  a  more  healthy  effect  on  the  child's  mind  — 
musically  and  otherwise  —  than  an  extensive  acquaintance 
from  earliest  years  with  these  products  of  the  national  spirit. 
If  it  were  to  do  nothing  more  than  give  him  a  distaste  — 
as  it  surely  would  —  for  the  vapid  music-hall  "  slang  "  (for 
music  has  slang  as  well  as  speech),  most  of  us  would  agree,  I 
think,  that  it  would  be  at  least  worth  while. 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD       45 

Well,  to  go  back  to  our  tune.  Here  it  would  be  a  good 
thing  for  the  teacher  to  try  to  make  the  pupils  tell  him  if  they 
found  this  tune  and  "  Barbara  Allen  "  alike,  or  if  they  found 
any  difference  between  them.  Then,  if  they  noticed  any  dif- 
ference, to  make  them  say,  as  far  as  they  could,  where  the 
difference  lay.  I  can  quite  well  believe  that  there  would 
be  not  a  few  eager  listeners  who  would  have  noticed  that  the 
opening  phrase  came  back  at  the  end.  If  so,  he  would  have 
his  opportunity,  for  at  once  he  would  begin  to  emphasize, 
as  a  thing  of  importance,  this  coming  back  to  the  first  idea 
in  a  composition,  and  would  play  or  sing  other  simple  pieces 
having  a  similar  design,  such,  e.g.,  as  "  The  Bluebells  of 
Scotland  "  or  "  The  Vicar  of  Bray." 

A  point  that  might  be  insisted  upon  in  connection  with  this 
type  of  tune  is  that  the  sense  of  "  home-coming  "  at  the  end 
is  made  much  stronger : 

I.  By  the  dwelling  for  a  greater  length  of  time  in 
another  district  —  which  in  itself  sets  up  a  desire 
for  the  "  homeward  journey  "  (here  the  teacher 
would  play  the  first  two  phrases  only  of  "  Charlie 
is  my  Darling  ") ; 

II.  By  the  emphatic  restatement  of  the  opening  phrase, 
which  gives  a  completely  satisfactory  sense  of 
"  being  at  home  "  (then  he  would  finish  the 
tune). 

Thus,  in  the  simplest  and  most  natural  way,  he  would 
have  been  able  to  enforce  one  of  the  most  important  facts 
of  music,  viz.,  that  of  the  ternary,  or  threefold,  plan  which 
underlies  most  of  the  music  of  the  last  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years,  i.e.,  from  the  time  of  Haydn  and  Mozart  onwards. 
But  this  enforcing  would  have  been  done  without  effort, 
without  the  cumbersome  machinery  of  elaborate  technical 
terms :  merely  by  the  familiar  and  easily  understood  figure 
of  a  sandwich,  the  first  phrase  and  its  repetition  at  the  end 
being  the  two  slices  of  bread,  and  the  middle  phrase  the 
meat  or  the  jam  ! 

In  dealing  with  these  two  tunes,  I  have  been  showing  a 
little  how  their  constructive  aspects  may  be  made  clear  to  a 
class  of  quite  young  children,  and,  of  course,  it  is  upon  this 
important  side  of  the  question  that  they  will  need  the  most 
help.  But  in  directing  their  attention  to  such  things,  a 


46       THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD 

matter  that  on  no  account  must  be  omitted  is  the  cultivation 
of  a  perception  of  the  character  of  the  music  on  the  part  of  the 
pupils,  who  should  be  asked  to  give  their 
own  ideas  on  the  subject.  In  all  probability, 
most  of  the  members  of  the  class  would 
have  noticed  that  " Barbara  Allen"  is  quiet  and  a  little 
pathetic,  whereas  "  Charlie  is  my  Darling  "  is  bold  and  even 
martial.  Here,  again  —  so  intimately  associated  are  the  two 
factors  of  construction  and  expression  —  it  would  interest 
the  class  to  show  them  how  this  very  difference  of  expression 
depends  upon  the  smooth  and  almost  monotonous  flow  of  the 
notes  in  "  Barbara  Allen,"  as  contrasted  with  the  springing, 
jumping  figure  that  goes  through  the  whole  of  "  Charlie  is  my 
Darling  "  with  such  vigorous,  pulsating  life  and  energy. 

One  might  also  illustrate  how  this  energy  is  heightened  by 
the  emphasis  derived  from  the  insistent  repetition  of  little 
fragments  such  as : 


etc. 


and  so  on  —  according  to  the  intelligence  of  the  class  and 
(what  is  very  important)  the  intelligence  and  ability  of  the 
teacher! 

Closely  connected  with  this  perception  of  the  character 

of  the  music  comes  the  exercise  of  the  listener's  imagination. 

.  And  here  it  is  most  essential  for  the  teacher 

the  imagination  to  ^>ear  *n  rmn(i  tne  need  of  stimulating  this 
side  of  the  pupil's  nature  wisely  and  without 
any  forcing.  In  endeavoring  to  do  this,  it  would,  of  course, 
be  legitimate  to  make  use  of  the  more  pictorial  or  illustrative 
type  of  music  —  that  which  has  a  more  or  less  definite 
"  program,"  such  as  the  overture  to  Mendelssohn's  "  Mid- 
summer Night's  Dream,"  and  some  of  the  smaller  pieces 
of  Schumann,  Grieg,  Macdowell  and  others.  Care  must 
be  taken,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  in  introducing  such  pieces 
to  the  pupil's  notice,  that  he  does  not  run  away  with  the 
foolish  idea  that  all  music  "  means  something."  The  lady 
who  said  that  she  always  "  saw  cathedrals  in  listening  to 
Beethoven,  and  moonlight  and  vague  shadows  when  she 
heard  Debussy  "  of  course  had  a  right  to  her  own  feelings; 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD       47 

but  for  the  teacher  to  suggest  or  hint  at  such  perfectly  irrel- 
evant ideas  would,  it  almost  goes  without  saying,  be  both 
foolish  and  pernicious.  It  is,  however,  none  the  less  true 
that  in  certain  cases  the  composer  himself  seeks  to  direct 
the  thoughts  of  the  listener  into  some  specific  channel, 
and  an  endeavor  on  the  part  of  the  teacher  to  help  the  pupil 
to  come  into  closer  relation  with  the  composer's  train  of 
thought,  by  the  use  of  poetic  imagery,  analogies  with  Nature, 
and  other  similar  means,  seems  to  me  not  only  permissible 
but  wise,  and  likely  to  be  productive  of  increased  interest 
and  corresponding  progress  on  the  pupil's  part. 

Among  the  essentials  for  intelligent  listening,  none  is  more 
important  than  the  power  to  follow  —  at  any  rate  to  some 
extent  —  the  development  of  the  composer's 
themes  or  ideas.  In  this,  in  large  measure,  Following  the 
lies  the  secret  of  »  making  sense  "  of  any  * 
work  of  more  than  very  modest  proportions  thoughts 
and  very  limited  scope.  We  have  to  remem- 
ber that  music  is  not  a  simple  but  a  complex  art,  and  "  the 
listener  must  hold  in  his  mind  the  thought  of  organized 
development  as  he  follows  a  performance  phrase  by  phrase." 
He  must  "  hear  each  phrase  as  a  preparation  for  that  which 
is  to  come ;  his  mind  [must  be]  alert,  as  if  about  to  spring 
ahead  of  the  actual  tones  and  anticipate  their  direction,  or 
at  least  ...  to  connect  each  passage  with  what  he  has 
already  heard  and  construct  in  his  mind  more  or  less  extensive 
divisions  of  the  work  as  he  goes  along."  l  In  many  of  the 
Sonatas  and  Symphonies  of  Beethoven,  for  example,  there 
are  movements  in  which  the  whole  fabric  is  developed  from 
one  or  two  comparatively  insignificant  musical  ideas  which 
in  very  truth  hold  the  life  of  the  movement  within  them, 
just  as  the  seed  contains  all  the  potentialities  of  growth  and 
development  which  we  associate  with  the  plant  or  the  tree. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  it  is  to  the  extent  that  we 
keep  firm  hold  on  our  grasp  of  these  germ-ideas  in  our  listen- 
ing that  we  gain  a  successful  conception  of  the  whole  move- 
ment, one  in  which  we  are  aware  of  the  master-purpose  domi- 
nating it  throughout.  Thus,  and  thus  only,  can  we  be 
truly  in  that  position  of  "  intelligent  expectation  "  to  which 
allusion  has  been  made.  Moreover,  the  growing  ability 
thus  to  follow  the  composer's  train  of  thought  will  reveal  to 
1  W.  H.  Dickinson  —  "The  Education  of  a  Music-lover." 


48        THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD 

us  more  and  more  of  his  artistic  individuality,  and  (as  one 
has  said  elsewhere)  l  of  that  "  power  which  is  not  shared 
by  the  painter  or  sculptor,  and  which  the  artist  in  words 
possesses  only  in  a  far  less  notable  degree  than  does  the  musi- 
cian —  the  power  of  making  the  same  original  thought  or 
idea  express  the  most  varied  emotions,  as  it  were  in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye.  Music,  in  this  respect,  would  seem  to 
get  nearest  to  life  of  all  the  arts,  for  in  the  rapidity  and  sure- 
ness  with  which  one  idea  may  be  made  to  pass  instantane- 
ously '  from  grave  to  gay,  from  lively  to  severe'  we  have 
something  closely  akin  to  the  ever-changing  expression  of 
the  human  countenance,  which  is,  of  course,  in  a  marked 
sense  the  index  of  the  mind  and  soul.  It  need  hardly  be 
said  that  in  the  representative  arts  of  painting  or  sculpture 
the  delineation  of  shifting  emotions  in  this  way  is  mani- 
festly impossible,  for  the  expression  once  painted  or  chiselled 
must  of  necessity  remain  exactly  as  it  was  first  conceived 
and  executed." 

Even  in  the  case  of  the  young  pupil,  I  am  as  sure  as  I  can 
be  of  anything  that  if,  instead  of  the  teacher  giving  him  such 
a  piece  as  Beethoven's  little  G'-minor  Sonata  (Op.  49,  No.  i), 
with  the  mere  request  to  "  go  and  learn  it,"  he  were  himself 
to  interest  that  pupil  in  it  first  —  not  so  much  from  the  point 
of  view  of  execution,  as  from  the  standpoint  of  musical  art  — 
the  result  in  that  pupil's  mind  ever  afterwards  would  be  very 
different  from  what  it  usually  is.2  Most  teachers  know 
something  of  the  callous  way  in  which  such  incidents  as  that 
of  the  delicious  little  "  farewell  "  at  the  end  of  the  first  part 
of  the  "  Andante  "  (just  before  the  first  double-bar),  are 


f-nr- 


calando 

treated  by  the  average  piano-pupil  whose  "  ears  have  not 
been  opened  to  hear."  If  the  teacher  were  to  play  the  piece 
to  him,  and  show  how  this  little  phrase  is  —  as  it  were  — 
just  Beethoven's  "  backward  look  "  at  the  second  theme  of 


"Aural  Culture  based  upon  Musical  Appreciation"  (Stewart  Mac- 
rson  an 
1  have 
experience. 


pherson  and  Ernest  Read),  Part  II.,  pages  175-6. 

2  1  have  seen  a  class  of  young  children  spell-bound  under  such  an 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD       49 

the  movement,  as  if  he  were  loth  to  lose  its  tender  fragrance, 
the  whole  matter  would,  at  any  rate,  be  put  on  a  different 
level,  and  there  would  be  some  chance  of  its  being  looked  at 
from  a  different  view-point.  It  is  not  unlikely,  too,  that 
in  such  an  act  on  the  teacher's  part,  there  might  be  just  the 
touch  that  was  needed  to  awaken  that  sympathetic  mental 
attitude  to  which  reference  has  already  been  made. 

In  passing,  one  might  say  that  the  whole  of  that  long-suffer- 
ing movement  of  Beethoven's  little  Sonata  is  full  of  delightful 
points  of  thematic  development ;  particularly  interesting 
is  the  opening  of  its  second  part : 


etc. 


where  the  same  2nd  subject  tune  is  shown  in  a  mood  of 
strenuous  determination  (sadly  unrealized  by  the  general 
run  of  pupils,  bent  on  the  unequal  contest  between  the 
"  shakes  "  and  their  own  recalcitrant  fingers  !),  and  so  also  is 
the  twilight  calm  of  the  Coda,  where  the  theme  dies  away  in 
charming  duet-fashion,  thus : 


etc. 


The  recognition  of  such  incidents  as  these,  and  the  follow- 
ing of  the  composer  as  he  brings  out  of  his  treasure-house 
these  jewels  of  his  art,  lie  at  the  root  of  that  fuller  enjoyment 
and  appreciation  of  the  masterpieces  of  such  symphonists  as 
Haydn,  Mozart,  Beethoven  and  Brahms,  and  of  the  great 
dramatic  composer  of  the  igth  century,  Wagner.  The 
power  thus  to  follow  indeed  adds  that  "  very  much  more  "  of 
which  the  writer  of  the  Times  article  spoke  when  he  said : 
"  Whatever  satisfaction  may  be  derived  from  music  by  those 
to  whom  it  is  merely  a  thing  of  the  nerves,  or,  at  least,  of 
E 


50       THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD 

the  surface  emotions,  the  [true]  listener  has  all  that,  and 
very  much  more."  In  conclusion :  of  the  immense  value 
of  the  "  appreciative  "  study  of  music  I  am  absolutely  con- 
vinced—  as  convinced  as  I  am  of  the  sterility  of  much  of 

the  so-called  musical  education  with  which 
^ppretiative  "  we  are  a^  ^ammar-  Under  the  influence  of 
teaching  the  kind  °^  teaching  I  have  been  advocating, 

and  in  the  atmosphere  of  a  sympathetic 
relation  to  music  which  is  thereby  possible,  the  interest  even 
of  those  whom  we  are  pleased  to  call  unmusical  pupils  is 
stimulated  almost  beyond  belief,  and  the  result  is,  in  countless 
instances,  a  new  outlook  upon  the  art  itself,  and  a  new  joy 
in  their  own  lives. 

I  am  not  talking  at  random  or  as  an  unpractical  visionary  ; 
I  speak  that  which  I  do  know.  The  testimony  of  those 
teachers  who  have  pursued,  and  are  pursuing,  this  most 
hopeful  and  inspiring  work,  either  in  school  or  out  of  it,  is 
unanimous ;  the  "  Appreciation  class  "  over  and  over  again 
has  come  to  be  the  most  eagerly  looked-for  event  of  the  week's 
work,  and  the  experience  of  the  teachers  themselves  has 
invariably  pointed  in  the  same  direction,  namely,  to  quick- 
ened interest  and  real  musical  growth. 

A  striking  instance  of  this  came  recently  under  my  notice. 
Before  the  annual  concert  at  one  of  our  great  public  schools, 

at  which  a  professional  orchestra  was  to  per- 
experiment  form>  the  P^cipal  music-master  offered  to 

meet  any  boys  who  liked  to  come  to  him 
week  by  week  during  the  term,  and  to  play  for  them  the  vari- 
ous works  that  were  to  form  the  program  of  the  concert. 
The  first  week  about  thirty  somewhat  shy  boys  put  in  an 
appearance  ;  he  played  to  them,  made  them  sing  (or  whistle, 
if  they  could  not  sing)  the  chief  themes  until  they  were 
thoroughly  familiar  with  them,  discussed  the  form  and  the 
various  points  of  interest  in  the  course  of  the  music,  and  so 
forth.  The  result  was  a  splendid  success ;  the  little  group 
of  boys  was  enthusiastic,  and  after  that  first  meeting  the 
master  had  the  satisfaction  of  welcoming  as  many  as  two 
hundred  boys  at  his  weekly  class,  boys  who  voluntarily  gave 
up  other  occupations  in  order  to  hear  the  music  and  his  talk 
about  it. 

What  a  different  attitude  will  be  assumed  towards  music  by 
those  boys  in  future  from  that  which  so  often  obtains  amongst 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD       51 

the  youth  of  our  schools  !  Something  of  the  dignity  and  the 
worthiness  of  the  musical  art  will  have  entered,  perhaps 
unconsciously,  into  their  minds,  and  instead  of  "  music  " 
being  associated  merely  with  the  idea  of  somewhat  dismal 
piano-practice,  shirked  —  and  not  unnaturally  shirked  — 
because  taken  out  of  play-time,  it  will  connote  the  idea  of  the 
ampler  and  nobler  atmosphere  of  a  Beethoven  symphony, 
perchance,  into  which  they  have  been  enabled  to  enter  by 
the  wise  and  far-seeing  action  of  their  master,  who  surely 
built  wisely  and  well,  upon  firm  foundations. 

The  art  needs  better  listeners ;  the  composer,  the  per- 
former, longs  for  the  "  gracious  sympathy  of  the  understand- 
ing "  in  his  hearers ;  is  it  not  upon  some  such  lines  as  those  I 
have  outlined  in  these  articles  that  the  consummation  of 
these  hopes  may  ultimately  be  found  ? 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF   THE   CHILD       53 


PART  THREE 
THE  MUSIC-TEACHER:  HIS  AIMS  AND  IDEALS 

"What  one  ought  to  aim  at  is  not  the  establish- 
ment of  personal  influence  .  .  .  but  to  share 
such  good  things  as  one  possesses,  to  assist  rather 
than  to  sway."  A.C.BENSON 


IT  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  one  of  the  most  important 
questions  that  press  upon  the  music-student,  at  least  at  some 
period  of  his  career,  is  that  of  the  consideration  —  the  serious 
consideration  —  of  all  that  is  involved  in  the  expression,  so 
familiar  to  our  ears,  but  often  so  imperfectly  understood  — 
the  Music-teacher.  It  is  more  than  likely  that  the  majority 
of  those  who  study  the  art  of  music  seriously  make  some 
acquaintance  with  the  duties  of  the  teacher's  office  during  the 
years  that  succeed  their  studentship,  and  it  is  well,  it  is  most 
vitally  necessary,  that  we  should  reflect  very  earnestly  upon 
what  that  office  involves  in  the  way  of  responsiblity  and  of 
ideals. 

Now,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  first  thing  it  is  needful  to 
impress  upon  our  young  musicians  is  that  teaching  is  an 
art  in  itself,  as  worthy  in  its  way  as  the  art  of  the  executant 
or  the  composer,  and  that  it  is  an  indignity  to  its  honor  for 
it  ever  to  be  regarded  as  a  pis  alter,  or  as  a  trade  to  be  fol- 
lowed and  endured  merely  because  they  find  it  difficult 
or  impossible  to  earn  a  livelihood  as  public  performers  or 
as  composers.  They  must  see  that  the  teacher's  career  is 
not  for  the  broken-down  performer  —  there  is  no  use  for  him 
there ;  they  must  realize  that  they  cannot  enter  the  teacher's 
calling,  any  more  than  the  holy  estate  of  matrimony,  "  lightly 
or  unadvisedly,"  but  must  be  deeply  sensible  of  the  responsi- 
bility attaching  to  their  position,  and  of  the  untold  influence 

xThe  substance  of  some  addresses  to  music-students,  delivered 
during  the  years  1914  and  1915. 


54        THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF   THE   CHILD 

they  may  be  able  to  exercise,  either  for  good  or  for  ill,  upon 
those  who  come  into  close  personal  contact  with  them. 

William  James,  the  American  psychologist,  writing  a  few 
years  back,  was  able  to  say : 

"In  the  general  activity  and  uprising  of  ideal  interests  which 
everyone  with  an  eye  for  fact  can  discern  all  about  us  in  American 
life,  there  is  perhaps  no  more  promising  feature  than  the  fermenta- 
tion which  for  a  dozen  years  or  more  has  been  going  on  among  the 
teachers.  In  whatever  sphere  of  education  their  functions  lie, 
there  is  to  be  seen  among  them  a  really  inspiring  amount  of  search- 
ing of  heart  about  the  highest  concerns  of  their  profession.  .  .  . 
The  teachers  of  this  country,  one  may  say,  have  its  future  in  their 
hands.  The  earnestness  which  they  at  present  show  in  striving 
to  enlighten  and  strengthen  themselves  is  an  index  of  the  nation's 
probabilities  of  advance  in  all  ideal  directions."  1 

Well,  it  appears  to  me  that  a  similar  fermentation  has  for 
some  time  past  been  observable  amongst  the  teachers  in  our 
own  land,  and  that  this  stir  and  movement 
has  communicated  itself  in  large  measure 
Teaclers  to  tnose  wno  are  dealing  with  the  more 

special  form  of  teaching  connected  with  our 
own  art  of  music.  I  would,  therefore,  urge  the  younger 
members  of  our  profession,  and  particularly  the  students 
nearing  the  completion  of  their  ordinary  musical  training, 
to  recognize  the  absolute  need  for  careful  study  of  the  newer 
conditions  that  are  arising  all  around  us. 

Great  changes  are  often  brought  about  by  other  processes 
than  those  involving  the  sudden  overthrow  of  existing  things ; 
there  is  a  leaven  which  works  almost  unobserved  by  the 
multitude,  but  which  nevertheless  ends  by  "  leavening  the 
whole  lump,"  and  before  we  are  aware  of  it  the  "  old  order  " 
has  changed,  and  those  who  trusted  to  the  comforting  but 
deluding  thought  that  "  what  has  been  will  be,"  awaken  to 
the  disconcerting  realization  of  a  movement  and  an  advance 
in  which  they  have  had  neither  part  nor  lot,  and  in  the  midst 
of  which  they  find  themselves  mystified,  nonplussed  and 
outclassed.  One  of  these  bloodless  revolutions  is  actually 
in  process  of  being  carried  out  at  the  present  time,  and  some 
among  us  seem  to  know  little  about  it  yet.  Certain  ques- 
tions are  being  put  by  those  who  think  —  questions  asked 
both  of  themselves  and  of  those  around  them.  We,  as 

1  "Talks  to  Teachers."  —  William  James. 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD       55 

teachers  of  the  art  of  music,  cannot  hold  ourselves  aloof  and 
say,  "  These  things  are  not  for  me ;  I  may  go  on  my  way 
without  troubling  my  brain  about  such  inconvenient  and 
disturbing  matters."  I  say  they  are  for  us,  everyone  of  us ; 
the  student,  the  professor,  the  executant,  the  composer, 
for  we  all  hang  together  here,  and  unless  we  are  untrue 
to  ourselves  and  to  our  art,  we  must  —  each  in  our  own 
respective  sphere  and  degree  —  take  cognizance  of  the 
thoughts  and  the  doubts  that  arise  in  the  minds  of  those 
who  are  responsible  for  the  education  of  the  young  in  our 
midst. 

For  upon  the  character  of  the  musical  training  of  the  average 
material  to  be  found  amongst  us  depends  in  the  long  run  the 
future  of  music  in  this  country.  The  composer,  the  execu- 
tant —  no  less  than  the  teacher  —  is  concerned,  as  I  have 
just  said,  with  all  this,  for  neither  can  do  any  "  mighty 
work  "  where  there  is  "  unbelief,"  that  is,  where  he  cannot 
work  in  an  atmosphere  of  sympathy  and  understanding. 
Therefore,  it  seems  to  me,  it  is  of  the  first 
importance  that  those  whose  duty  it  will  The  Teacher 
be  to  deal  with  this  average  material  — 
the  school-girls  and  school-boys  —  shall 
be  aware  of  their  great  responsibility,  and  see  where  and 
how  they  may  be  of  untold  assistance  in  the  preparing  of 
the  soil  for  the  harvest  we  all  would  fain  think  is  to  be  reaped 
in  the  time  to  come. 

Suppose,  then,  that  any  one  of  you  students  were  to  be 
setting  out,  after  a  happy  and  enthusiastic  period  of  study 
and  intercourse  within  the  walls  of  some  great  musical  in- 
stitution, to  take  up  your  life-work  as  a  teacher.  Let  me 
say  that  that  will  be  the  moment  when  you  will  need  all  the 
hope  and  all  the  true  kind  of  ambition  that  you  can  summon 
to  your  aid.  For  it  is  quite  likely  that  after  the  glow  and 
color  of  your  student-days  —  when  you  find  yourself  left 
to  yourself  —  a  certain  flatness  and  dulness  may  creep  over 
your  outlook,  and  a  none  too  welcome  reaction  set  in  which 
may  need  all  your  efforts  to  combat. 

Then  is  the  time  to  look  up,  to  set  your  house  in  order  — 
so  to  speak  —  and  to  gain  some  sort  of  idea  as  to  what  you 
are  going  to  aim  at,  what  ideals  you  are  going  to  follow. 

First,  then,  it  is  necessary  to  have  some  clear  notion  of 
what  your  duties  are  to  be  as  a  teacher.  What  is  to  be  your 


56        THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD 

aim?     You  will  answer,  perhaps,  "  To  teach  my  pupil  to 

play  or  sing."     Yes,  true;    but  there  is  something  more 

than  that  you  have  to  do,  and  that  is,  to 

WhaJ  should  be      teach  your  pupil  musiC)  an(i  to  help  him  to 

aims?6**  get  *nto  toucn  ^h  tn^s  wonderful  and 

beautiful  thing  which  we  love  ourselves 
and  which,  if  we  are  sincere  and  earnest,  we  shall  want  to 
make  him  love,  too.  Now,  I  fear  that  this  thought  has 
not  always  been  sufficiently  present  in  the  minds  of  some 
teachers,  and  if  we  think  of  many  of  those  so-called  "  music- 
lessons  "  that  are  given  all  over  the  country  day  by  day, 
I  fancy  we  shall  not  be  able  to  assert  with  a  vast  degree  of 
confidence  that  our  children's  lessons  and  practice  have 
invariably  yielded  them  that  keen  interest  and  joy  which 
should  be,  not  the  exception,  but  the  rule,  if  they  are  to  be 
of  any  value  at  all. 

I  remember  a  friend  of  mine  telling  me  that  he  was  once 
called  upon  to  hear  a  girl  play,  and  when  she  entered  the 
room  with  a  bundle  of  pieces  under  her  arm  he,  thinking  to 
put  her  at  her  ease,  said,  "  Come  along,  now,  what  will  you 
play  first  to  me  ?  Which  of  all  these  things  do  you  like  the 
best?"  The  answer  was  at  the  moment  somewhat  of  a 
shock :  "I  hate  the  lot !  "  Surely  there  was  something 
wrong  here ;  the  fault  did  not  lie  with  the  music,  for  it  was 
entirely  good.  Did  it  lie  with  the  girl  herself,  or  had  it  any- 
thing to  do  with  the  manner  in  which  the  whole  subject  had, 
up  to  that  moment,  been  presented  to  her  ?  It  is  an  interest- 
ing point. 

The  .first  thing,  then,  for  the  would-be  teacher  to  realize 
very  clearly  is  what  he  is  going  to  set  out  to  do.  Why  is  he 
going  to  be  a  music-teacher?  Why  should  he  not  be  any- 
thing else  just  as  well  ? 

Does  he  really  believe  in  his  work  ?  Does  he  see  why  his 
pupil  should  learn  music,  and  does  he  connect  this  learning 
of  music  with  the  wider  aspect  of  the  matter  represented  by 
the  education  of  the  pupil  as  a  whole  —  in  other  words  the 
relation  of  music  to  the  various  other  parts  of  that  education  ? 

These  are  matters  which  cannot  be  put  on  one  side  as 
of  no  particular  moment ;  they  are  vital  if  any  advance 
is  to  be  made,  or  any  real  and  valuable  results  are  to  be 
achieved.  It  is  necessary  to  remember  that  most  of  you, 
in  all  probability,  will  have  to  deal,  not  with  professed 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD       57 

music-students,  but  with  girls  and  boys  with  whom  music  is 
one  activity  among  many,  and  your  aim  must  clearly  be  to 
make  its  study  something  of  real  value  in  their  mental 
development. 

It  used  to  be  a  common  experience  to  hear  the  music- 
student,  about  to  embark  upon  his  or  her  teaching  career, 
declare  with  an  amusing  assumption  of 
superiority,  "  Oh !  I  shall  never  take  begin- 
ners!  "  And  perhaps  this  kind  of  thing  is 
not  altogether  extinct  even  to-day.  I  al- 
ways say  to  those  whom  I  can  in  any  way  advise  that  the 
one -thing  they  should  pray  for  is  that  they  may  have  begin- 
ners !  Far  from  its  being  a  position  of  inferiority  to  deal 
with  the  child,  it  is  to  my  mind  not  only  the  most  hopeful 
phase  of  the  teacher's  work,  but  it  needs  a  special  training 
of  the  most  thorough  and  searching  kind. 

Suppose,  then,  that  a  child  were  to  come  to  you  for  his 
first  lesson,  what  should  be  your  own  course  of  action,  and 
what  should  be  the  result  upon  the  pupil  of  having  come? 
Of  course,  your  plan  of  campaign  would  have  to  vary  accord- 
ing to  the  previous  musical  experiences,  if  any,  of  the  child 
himself ;  therefore,  it  would  be  your  duty  to  find  out  what 
those  experiences  had  been,  in  order  that  you  might  build 
upon  them  as  far  as  it  was  possible  so  to  do.  In  such  a  case 
as  this  we  have  to  remember  that  it  is  quite  likely  that  you 
would  be  giving  him  his  first  really  serious  impressions  of 
music ;  and  first  impressions  are  peculiarly 
vivid  and  lasting.  In  dealing  with  the 
young  child,  the  great  point  is  to  win  his 
sympathy  and  his  cooperation.  You  have  to  find  an  en- 
trance into  his  mind,  and  to  make  him  understand  that  what 
you  are  going  to  do  together  is  something  that  is  alive,  real, 
fundamental  —  something  in  which  he  will  be  able  to  feel 
there  is  a  living  spirit  at  work.  The  faculty  of  wonder  is 
a  very  real  thing  in  a  small  child,  and  upon  that  it  is  wise 
to  base  a  good  deal.  His  mental  grasp  is  naturally  small, 
his  power  of  expressing  himself  in  words  almost  non-existent 
so  far  as  matters  intellectual  are  concerned,  his  interest  in 
printed  signs,  such  as  words  or  notes,  of  the  smallest.  And 
yet,  too  often  it  has  been  the  custom  to  seat  the  child  at 
the  piano  face  to  face  with  a  book  containing  certain  caba- 
listic and  (to  him)  meaningless  signs,  and  to  inform  him 


58       THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD 

that  one  of  them  is  called  a  whole  note,  another  a  half -note 
and  so  on  —  facts  which  do  not  interest  him  in  the  least,  and 
to  which  he  remains  stolidly  indifferent. 

Indeed,  why  should  they  interest  him?  In  themselves 
they  are,  of  course,  not  musical  ideas  at  all ;  they  are  merely 
signs  —  machinery,  so  to  speak  —  which  he  is  frequently 
called  upon  to  master  before  any  vision  of  music  reaches  him 
at  all.1  Is  it  any  wonder  that  such  an  introduction  to  our 
beautiful  art  should  cause  many  a  small  person  to  fall  by  the 
way,  and  to  become  cynical  where  music  and  all  its  works 
are  concerned  ? 

Happily,  it  is  increasingly  being  realized  that  the  founda- 
tion upon  which  all  hope  of  real  musical  progress  must  be 
built  is  the  training  of  the  ear.  It  is  said,  and  said  truly,  that 
every  piano-lesson  well  given  must  in 

itself  be  an  ear-training  lesson>  but  that 

is  not  enough.  Ear-training  in  its  more 
comprehensive  sense  is  far  too  large  a  subject  to  be  dis- 
missed in  that  somewhat  vague  and  abstract  way ;  it  must 
strike  at  the  root  of  much  that  is  independent  of  connection 
with  any  particular  instrument,  and  indeed  should  begin 
long  before  there  is  any  thought  of  definite  instrumental 
teaching  whatever.  It  must  connote  the  gradual  sensitizing 
of  the  whole  being  of  the  child  in  the  direction  of  music 
through  the  development  of  his  feeling  for  time  and  rhythm 
and  the  relations  of  pitch,  the  awakening  of  his  imagination, 
and  the  stimulating  of  his  powers  of  observation.  By  such 
means  he  will,  when  he  comes  to  the  point  of  learning  an 
instrument,  have  some  chance  of  doing  so  with  ear  and  mind 
to  some  extent  prepared  to  cope  with  the  difficulties  he  will 
have  to  encounter,  instead  of  meeting  a  solid  and  forbidding 
phalanx  of  physical  and  mental  complications  before  which 
he  retires  baffled  and  discouraged. 

In  the  earliest  stages  of  the  child's  musical  work,  it  seems 
to  me  that  the  very  fact  of  his  own  "  motor-activity" 

may  become  a  valuable  adjunct  in  the 
The  Chad's  t  k  f  Drawing  out  his  powers  of  self- 

'' motor-activity"  .  TT      i  1 

expression.     He   longs,    as    you   know,    to 

be  on  the  move  (you  often  wish  he  would  not,  perhaps,  but 

he  does) ;  why  not  take  advantage,  therefore,  of  this  natural 

tendency,  and  use  it  for  your  own  purposes?     We  hear 

1  This  process  is  called  "teaching  him  his  notes  !" 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD       59 

much  talk  in  these  days  about  bodily  Rhythmic  movements 
in  connection  with  the  teaching  and  learning  of  music.  How 
far  are  they  in  accordance  with  Nature's  laws?  How  far 
are  they  of  value  in  laying  a  foundation  for  that  sensitive- 
ness to  order  and  rhythm  and  that  disciplined  expression 
which  is  the  very  life  and  soul  of  all  musical  creation  and 
execution?  The  name  of  M.  Jacques-Dalcroze  will  doubt- 
less come  to  the  minds  of  many  in  the  endeavor  to  answer 
these  questions.  Without  its  being  necessary  to  commit  one- 
self to  an  indorsement  of  the  whole,  or  anything  like  the 
whole,  of  his  system,  it  should,  I  think,  be  evident  that 
the  root-principle  of  much  that  he  advocates  is  absolutely 
sound,  for  it  just  amounts  to  this,  that  the  young  child's 
natural  means  of  expression  is  through  bodily  movement.1 
Not  only  are  the  ideas  of  pulse,  time,  the  progressive  nature 
of  rhythm  and  the  principles  of  form  or  shape  easily  expressed 
by  bodily  movement,  but,  what  is  even  more  important, 
in  the  earliest  stages,  the  child's  perception  of  the  character 
of  a  great  deal  of  simple  music  may  be  stimulated,  and  his 
listening  powers  developed  enormously,  by  the  aid  of  the 
unrestrained  running,  skipping,  marching,  or  whatever  it 
may  be,  which  is  the  result  of  his  own  initia-  ((  „ 
tive,  and  is  suggested  to  his  small  mind  by  bodily 

•*.    i?    i-   •        -LI        t         1  •  movements 

the  music  itself,  being  therefore  his  own 

response  to  its  appeal.2  I  cannot  enlarge  here  upon  this 
most  important  aspect  of  the  whole  matter ;  I  can  only  say 
that  experience  has  confirmed  the  extraordinary  results 
claimed  from  work  in  this  direction  (especially  in  class),  as 
a  preliminary  to  the  more  severe  call  upon  the  pupil's  mental 
powers  later  on,  as  he  passes  out  of  early  childhood  and 
reaches  a  stage  at  which  his  thinking  and  reasoning  powers 
have  developed  sufficiently  to  respond  to  the  demands 
made  upon  them  by  the  teacher,  without  recourse  to  such 
physical  aids. 

When  the  more  serious  business  of  his  aural  training 
begins,  it  is  in  most  cases  possible  to  correlate  such  aural 

1 1  say  advisedly,  "the  young  child's,"  as  it  should  be  obvious  that 
this  does  not  hold  good  in  the  case  of  the  adult  or  the  adolescent. 

2  The  development  of  the  child's  own  initiative  in  this  way  was,  as 
far  as  my  own  knowledge  serves  me,  first  carried  out  systematically  at 
the  Streatham  Hill  High  School  under  the  direction  of  Miss  Marie 
Salt,  where  it  still  forms  an  important  element  of  the  musical  work 
during  the  Kindergarten  stage. 


60        THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD 

training  with  the  study  of  an  instrument.     But  it  should 
be  remembered  that,  unless  the  development  of  the  pupil's 

.     .  j         ear  and  mind  is,  all  along  the  line,  in  ad- 
far  and  mind  /•  1  •  /•  /» 
first ;  fingers  next  vance  of  ms  mere  powers  of  finger-execution, 
his  progress  musically  will  be  retarded  and 
checked  beyond  belief,  and  Nemesis  will  follow. 

It  is  evident  that  much  of  the  pupil's  aural  training  can 
be  most  effectively  carried  out  in  class,  where  the  stimulus 
of  numbers,  and  the  interest  aroused  by  seeing  and  hearing 
the  efforts  of  others,  are  factors  of  extreme  importance  and 
value.  Herein  lies  one  very  strong  argument  in  favor  of 
the  child's  musical  studies  being  carried  on  in  school  (that 
is,  of  course,  wherever  the  conditions  are  satisfactory),  for 
there  it  is  possible  for  him  to  reap  the  immense  advantages 
of  the  ear-training  and  choral  classes,  which  are  playing 
every  day  a  more  and  more  notable  part  in  the  musical  educa- 
tion of  our  boys  and  girls,  and  are  being 
and  class  work  conducted  with  ever  growing  efficiency 
and  success.  And  I  would  urge  upon  all 
music-students  the  extreme  importance  of  gaining  practical 
knowledge  of  the  methods  of  dealing  with  such  classes, 
for  this  knowledge  is  in  many  cases  now,  and  will  be  so 
increasingly  in  the  immediate  future,  a  sine  qua  non  for  the 
teacher  who  aspires  to  a  post  in  one  of  our  better-equipped 
schools,  where  those  responsible  for  the  education  of  our 
children  are  recognizing,  in  ever  larger  measure,  the  value 
of  such  work  in  their  mental  development,  and  are  welcoming 
the  cooperation  of  the  musician  in  their  task  in  a  spirit  of 
ever  greater  sympathy  and  regard. 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF   THE   CHILD       61 


II 

THE  advice  once  given  by  Samuel  Butler,  not  to  learn  to 
do,  but  to  learn  by  doing,  has  a  very  distinct  bearing  in 
connection  with  the  drawing  out  of  the  musical  powers  of  the 
young  pupil.  There  is  one  side  of  the  general  teaching  of 
music  which,  until  recently,  has  had  little  or  no  attention 
paid  to  it,  but  which  is  of  the  highest  consequence  in  the 
artistic  growth  of  the  child  —  I  mean  the  cultivation  of  his 
own  creative  faculty.  William  James,  from  whose  "  Talks 
to  Teachers  "  I  have  already  quoted,  says  again : 

"  During  the  [early]  years  of  childhood  the  mind  is  most  interested 
in  the  sensible  properties  of  material  things.  Constructiveness  is  the 
instinct  most  active ;  and  by  the  incessant  hammer-  .„..., .  T 

1  •  11          »  i          1  i    11        William    James 

ing  and  sawing,  and  dressing  and  undressing  dolls, 
putting  of  things  together  and  taking  them  apart,  the  child  not  only 
trains  the  muscles  to  co-ordinate  action,  but  accumulates  a  store  of 
.  .  .  conceptions  which  are  the  basis  of  his  knowledge  of  the 
material  world  through  life.  .  .  .  One  of  the  best  fruits  of  the 
*  child-study '  movement  has  been  to  re-instate  [constructive]  activi- 
ties to  their  proper  place  in  a  sound  system  of  education.  Feed  the 
growing  human  being,  feed  him  with  the  sort  of  experience  for 
which  from  year  to  year  he  shows  a  natural  craving,  and  he  will 
develop  in  adult  life  a  sounder  sort  of  mental  tissue,  even  though 
he  may  seem  to  be  'wasting'  a  great  deal  of  his  growing  time  in 
the  eyes  of  those  for  whom  the  only  channels  of  learning  are  books 
and  verbally  communicated  information" 

With  regard  to  literature  and  music,  most  children  are 
capable  of  a  certain  amount  of  original  invention,  and  it 
will  be  found  that  many  will,  if  the  experi-          chad' 
ment  be  made,  soon  be  able  to  construct  creative  faculty 
little  tunes  for  themselves.     "  In  such  work, 
which  need  not  absorb  much  time  or  labor,  children  take 
the  keenest  interest,  as  they  find  in  it  a  fresh  means  of  self- 
expression.     Even  the  Kindergarten  child  who,  in  response 
to  his  teacher's  singing  of  (it  may  be)  a  simple  fragment  of 
tune,  such  as  the  following : 


62        THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD 


pipes  in  his  tiny  voice  —  without  any  thought  of  the 
technicalities  of  notation,  of  which  at  that  particular  stage 
he  would  know  nothing  —  another  fragment  something  like 
this: 


has  taken  the  first  step  along  the  desired  path,  and  experi- 
ences a  sense  of  real  delight  in  the  consciousness  that  he  really 
has  '  made  something  '  himself.  At  the  same  time  he  has, 
without  effort  or  undue  labor,  learned  an  important  fact 
connected  with  the  musical  '  phrase  '  which  will  stand  him 
in  good  stead  later  on  when  the  more  technical  part  of  his 
work  begins.  The  object  of  such  constructive  work  is  ... 
to  apply  to  music-study  the  sane  ideas  now  gaining  ground 
with  reference  to  the  training  of  the  pupil's  powers  of  obser- 
vation and  imagination  by  means  of  drawing,  where  the 
ability  to  originate,  however  feebly,  is  beginning  to  be  recog- 
nized as  lying  at  the  root  of  all  real  and  lasting  progress  in 
those  aspects  of  mental  development  which  the  use  of  pencil 
or  brush  is  supposed  effectively  to  encourage  and  to  stimu- 
late." * 

The  headmistress  of  one  of  our  most  important  London 
schools  said  in  a  recent  address  on  "  Music  in  School-life  "  : 

"Of  all  the  various  types  of  pupils  that  pass  through  our  hands, 
hardly  any  is  so  dreaded  by  a  keen  teacher  as  the  dull,  unrespon- 
,_,  .  .  sive  boys  or  girls  who  never  brighten  into  interest, 

ofocS^ZU  who  never  produce  an  independent  idea  We  all 
.  b  ,  fa .  long  for  pupils  who  snow  some  spark  of  origmal- 
c  ity  or  imagination,  and  sometimes  we  know 
not  by  what  means  to  strike  that  spark.  Might  not  music  furnish 
that  means?  A  dull  class  in  my  own  school  was  asked  the  other 
day  to  write  a  melody  to  'Hush-a-bye,  baby.'  No  hints  of  any 
kind  were  given,  but  every  child  was  pledged  to  make  an  attempt. 
All  brought  their  melody,  and  all  had  chosen  f  time,  the  reason 
given  being  that  you  could  rock  better  to  it.  One  child  brought 
a  charming  melody  written  in  the  minor  mode,  and  when  asked 
why  she  chose  the  minor  rather  than  the  major,  said  'Oh,  because 

1  "Aural  Culture  based  upon  Musical  Appreciation." — Stewart  Mac- 
pherson  and  Ernest  Read. 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD       63 

it  is  so  sad  and  dreamy  —  the  major  is  bright  and  jolly  and  would 
wake  the  baby  up ! '  These  may  be  small  things  in  themselves, 
but  I  think  they  show  that  music  taught  in  this  way  does  stimulate 
imagination  and  originality."  .  .  .  "I  speak  from  personal 
experience  in  the  literature  classes,  which  I  teach  myself,  when  I 
say  that  I  have  noticed  in  girls  who  have  had  this  form  of  aural 
training  a  keener  perception  of  the  beauty  of  great  poetry,  a  quicker 
response  to  its  melody,  its  rhythm,  its  cadences,  a  dawning  dis- 
crimination between  good  and  bad  in  literary  style  —  in  short,  a 
greater  sensitiveness  to  beauty  of  sound  and  form.  You  will  smile, 
perhaps,  when  I  tell  you  that  we  encourage  our  children  to  write 
words  to  the  melodies  they  compose,  or  to 
write  words  and  set  them  to  music;  yet  it  is 
curious  to  notice  how  soon  they  become  criti- 
cal of  their  own  and  each  other's  productions,  and  how,  by  degrees, 
there  emerges  a  perception,  limited,  of  course,  by  their  youth  and 
inexperience,  yet  genuine  so  far  as  it  goes,  of  the  word-music  of 
literature." 


I  think  it  will  be  generally  conceded  that  the  bane  of  much 
teaching  has  been,  and  often  still  is,  that  it  has  tended  to 
check  initiative,  and  this  fact  has  at  times  shown  itself  most 
fatally  in  the  case  of  music.  Let  me  urge  those  who  teach, 
or  intend  to  teach,  to  take  full  advantage  of  the  child's 
native  desire  to  "  do  something  off  his  own  bat  " ;  I  can 
assure  them  that  they  will  be  surprised  at  the  results. 

One  very  valuable  outcome  of  even  the  most  elementary 
creative  work  is  the  rapid  growth  of  the  feeling  for  shape  and 
balance,  the  absence  of  which  is  directly  responsible  for  the 
greater  part  of  the  bad  "  phrasing  "  we  are  all  acquainted 
with  in  the  instrumental  efforts  of  so  many  pupils.  This 
faulty  "  phrasing "  is  mainly  due  to 
an  obvious  aural  defect;  the  idea  of 
shape  and  balance  to  which  I  have  just 
referred  is  not,  to  any  effective  extent,  familiar  to  their 
ears.  By  encouraging  them  to  sing  little  answers  to  given 
phrases  sung  or  played  by  the  teacher,  they  are  helped  to 
feel  and  to  hear  the  need  for  "  phrase-shape  "  in  a  very 
marked  way,  and  thus  far  there  is  more  chance  of  their  being 
prepared  for  such  a  thing  when  they  come  to  interpret 
other  people's  music  at  the  keyboard  or  by  any  other  means. 

Closely  related  to  this  creative  work,  and  to  the  general 
training  of  the  ear,  comes  the  question  of  the  teaching  of 
Harmony.  It  may  be  asked,  "How can  you  expect  the 
average  pupil  of  school  age  to  learn  Harmony?  Where  is 


64        THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD 

the  time  for  it  ?    And  if  the  time  can  be  got,  of  what  practical 
use  is  it  to  him?     How  and  where  does  it  help  him  in  his 
lt  other  work?"     These  are  pertinent  ques- 

Pueil  „  ^age        tions,  and  it  is  important  that  they  should 
Harmony  De  faced.     First  of  all  it  is  necessary  to  dis- 

abuse our  minds  of  one  or  two  ideas  which 
tend  to  obscure  the  real  issue.  These  are  (a)  that  the  object 
of  learning  Harmony  is  to  enable  the  pupil  to  "  explain  "  every 
combination  he  meets  with,  according  to  some  theory;  (b)  that 
the  study  is  merely  a  sort  of  mental  discipline  which  in 
some  vague  way  imparts  what  is  called  "  musicianship  " 
(a  term  wkich  is  not  very  accurately  defined  by  those  who 
use  it).  That  it  does,  when  rightly  pursued,  contribute 
vitally  to  the  growth  of  musicianship  is  true,  but  only  under 
certain  very  clear  conditions.  Simply  to  set  the  pupil 
to  pile  up  chords  on  paper,  and  to  work  exercises  in  mere 
part-writing,  the  sound  of  which  he  does  not  hear  is  in  the 
nature  of  things  foolish,  and  may  lead  to  great  waste  of  time. 
But,  surely,  it  is  of  the  first  importance  that  we  should  train 
all  our  pupils  to  think  in  terms  of  Harmony  as  well  as  of 
melody,  so  that,  whether  they  are  merely  listening  to  other 
people's  performances,  or  are  playing  themselves,  their 
minds  may  be  brought  into  condition  for  hearing  what  the 
composer  has  written  —  to  think,  for  example,  occasionally 
of  the  bass !  —  by  means  of  a  right  habit  of  mind  formed  in 
their  early  years.  It  should  be  axiomatic  that  the  teaching 
and  learning  of  Harmony  should  have  the  closest  possible 
association  with  matters  such  as  these ;  it  should  aim  at 
making  the  pupil  listen  ever  more  keenly  to  his  music,  at 
rendering  his  whole  being  sensitive  to  the  more  intimate 
and  delicate  beauties  of  it  all  by  that  very  means,  and  at 
training  him  to  an  appreciation  of  those  very  matters  in  the 
discerning  of  which  the  more  educated  ear  of  the  musician 
differs  from  the  blunter  sensibilities  of  the  "  man  in  the  street." 
I  need  hardly  say,  then,  that  such  Harmony-study,  as  I 
am  referring  to,  must  be  simply  another  and  more  advanced 
form  of  the  aural  training  which  we  have 
been  thinking  of  throughout  our  considera- 
Aural  training  ^on  °*  tne  pupil's  early  musical  upbringing. 
If  it  is  not  that,  it  is  little  better  than  useless ; 
if  it  is  that,  its  importance  can  hardly  be  over-estimated. 
A  paragraph  in  the  recent  Memorandum  on  Music  in 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD       65 

Secondary  Schools,  issued  in  1914  by  the  Board  of  Educa- 
tion, puts  the  matter  very  well.     It  runs : 

"It  cannot  be  emphasized  too  strongly  that  the  method  of  teach- 
ing Harmony,  whereby  pupils  are  taught  to  resolve  chords  on  paper 
by  eye,  quite  regardless  of  the  fact  that  ninety-nine  per  cent,  of 
them  do  not  realize  the  sound  of  the  chords  they  are  writing,  is 
musically  valueless.  .  .  .  In  no  other  language  than  that  of 
music  would  it  be  tolerated  that  the  theoretical  rules  of  grammar 
and  syntax  should  be  so  completely  separated  from  the  actual 
literature  from  which  they  are  derived,  that  the  pupil  should  never 
have  perceived  that  there  was  any  relation  whatever  between  them. 
Yet  it  is  a  common  thing  to  find  'advanced'  Harmony  pupils 
unable  to  pick  out,  in  a  piece  of  music  they  are  playing,  the  key 
transitions,  a  Dominant -seventh,  a  cadence  or  a  suspension  —  a. 
state  of  ignorance  which  would  only  be  paralleled  by  a  sixth-form 
pupil,  familiar  with  all  the  rules  of  grammar  and  analysis,  who  could 
stare  blankly  at  a  page  of  prose,  totally  unable  to  pick  out  of  any 
sentence  the  subject,  the  verb,  and  the  object." 

Now,  a  point  to  be  carefully  observed  and  pondered  over 
is  that  all  these  matters  of  which  we  are  speaking  concern 
the  piano-teacher  just  as  much  as  they 

concern  the  actual  teacher  of  Harmony  as  ?    ,", 
1  •  T-V         •     ^1  /  ^       teacher  and 

a  separate  subject.     Even  in  the  case  of  the  Harmony 

child  learning  his  little  piano  pieces,  it  should 
be  possible  to  stimulate  the  harmonic  sense  and  arouse  his 
interest  in  the  texture  of  the  music,  by  encouraging  him  to 
play  cadences  and  other  simple  chord  progressions  for  himself, 
and  to  transpose  them  into  other  keys,  the  next  step  being 
the  endeavor  on  his  part  to  harmonize  little  fragments  of 
tune  at  the  keyboard,  using  at  first  merely  the  simple  primary 
chords  of  the  key.  By  such  means  a  habit  of  harmonic 
listening  may  be  developed ;  moreover,  the  pupil  will  experi- 
ence a  feeling  of  pleasure  at  having  done  something  for 
himself  that  "  isn't  in  the  book."  Of  course,  where  a  school 
possesses  an  Aural  training  class  —  and  no  school  should 
be  without  one  —  this  kind  of  work  would  follow  the  more 
elementary  melodic  work  in  natural  sequence ;  it  would 
serve  the  purpose  of  helping  the  pupil  to  grasp  with  his 
ear,  and  then  to  use  for  himself,  the  more  usual  and  natural 
idioms  of  the  language  he  is  studying  —  the  "  bread  and 
butter"  of  his  music,  so  to  speak  —  just  as  a  child  first 
learns  to  make  known  his  needs  and  his  feelings  in  mono- 
syllables, and,  in  his  early  attempts  to  read  and  write,  makes 


66       THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD 

use  of  the  phrases  and  expressions  which  are  in  general  cur- 
rency around  him. 

And  while  we  are  on  the  subject  of  the  teaching  of  Har- 
mony, it  would  hardly  be  honest  to  omit  all  reference  to 

the  difficulties  (perhaps  more  apparent  than 
The  Harmony-  real)  of  many  young  teachers  in  face  of 
teacher  and  so-  , ,  .  J  i  ., 

called  "Modern     the    m™^   and   often    perplexing    experi- 
Harmony"  ments  of  the  so-called  "  Modernists."     One 

is  conscious  of  an  attitude  of  bewilderment 
on  the  part  of  some;  the  hearts  of  the  timid  are  failing 
them  for  fear,  and  the  thought  —  unexpressed,  perhaps, 
in  words,  but  none  the  less  insistent  —  in  many  a  mind 
to-day  is,  "  Of  what  use  is  it  for  me  to  teach  my  pupils  Har- 
mony when,  seemingly,  everything  I  teach  them  is  abrogated 
and  ignored  in  so  many  of  the  compositions  with  which  they 
make  acquaintance?  Are  they  to  believe  me  and  the  text- 
books I  use,  or  are  they  to  pin  their  faith  to  the  direct  nega- 
tion of  all  that  I  have  been  trying  to  instil  into  their  minds  ?  " 
Of  course,  at  some  future  time  it  may  conceivably  be 
necessary  to  revise  our  whole  conception  of  the  theoretical 
and  practical  bases  of  our  musical  system,  in  order  to  con- 
form to  new  revelations  of  the  possibilities  of  the  composer's 
art.  Some  would  say  that  this  is  necessary  now,  and  that 
it  is  impossible  to  square  the  doings  of  the  French  modernists, 
of  Scriabine  and  of  Schonberg,  with  the  principles  of  art 
inherent  in  the  compositions  of  those  whom  the  world  recog- 
nizes as  the  great  and  acknowledged  masters.  That  this 
is  impossible  may  be  true,  or  it  may  not,  according  to  your 
point  of  view ;  but  what  I  should  like  emphatically  to  say 
is  that  the  time  for  casting  the  whole  of  our  existing  ma- 
chinery into  the  "  scrap-heap  "  is  not  yet.  For  one  very 

simple  reason ;  the  experiments  of  such 
Experimental  writers  as  I  have  just  named,  beautiful  as 

S*?"J  of  y$*       some  may  be,  the  reverse  of  beautiful  as 

Modernist  %  .,.,       , 

Art  others  undoubtedly  are,  are  still  only  experi- 

ments; to  declare  that  there  is  anything  yet 
to  be  seen  that  we  can  set  up  as  providing  the  basis  for  a 
new  artistic  system  with  qualities  of  permanence  would  be, 
to  say  the  least,  an  assumption  whose  temerity  would  be 
only  equalled  by  its  foolishness. 

So,  long,  then,  as  our  teaching  is  in  touch  with  that  which, 
though  already  recognized  as  established,  is  still  a  living 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD       67 

language,  so  long  as  it  trains  the  learner's  ear  to  appreciate 
and  understand  the  world's  acknowledged  masterpieces,  and 
gives  him  some  sort  of  standard  from  which  to  appraise  the 
doings  of  newer  men,  it  serves  its  chief  purpose.  The  objec- 
tion, sometimes  seriously  put  forward,  that  the  Harmony 
professor  and  the  Harmony  book  check  the  full-tide  of  orig- 
inal thought  on  the  part  of  those  budding  geniuses  by 
whose  existence  some  people  seem  so  obsessed,  is  surely 
one  that  argues  an  imperfect  realization  of  the  office  and 
functions  of  both.  The  student  must  learn  the  elements 
of  his  trade ;  he  must  know  how  to  use  his  tools  and  the 
means  by  which  he  may  avoid  cutting  himself  therewith. 
As  soon  as  he  has  done  these  things  the  wise  teacher  leaves 
him  largely  to  himself,  and  tells  him  to  read  and  absorb 
all  the  music  —  of  all  ages  and  countries  —  that  he  can  lay 
his  hands  on.  Rest  assured  that,  if  he  has  originality  in 
him,  it  "  will  out,"  and  the  elementary  knowledge  of  the 
rules  of  his  art,  and  the  degree  of  discipline  to  which  he  has 
submitted,  will  no  more  check  the  development  of  his  indi- 
viduality than  learning  to  draw  straight  lines  will  cramp 
or  hinder  the  artistic  flights  of  the  most  ardent  "  impres- 
sionist "  painter. 

Since  it  is  an  axiom  of  teaching  to  proceed  from  the  simple 
to  the  more  complex,  it  holds  good,  as  I  have  already  said, 
that  the  earlier  stages  of  the  pupil's  Harmony  work  must  be 
concerned  with  making  acquaintance  with  the  more  usual 
idioms,  things  which  are  universal  in  their  use ;  and  not  with 
those  which  are  the  experimental  battle  ground  of  special 
types  of  writers. 

Thus  the  time  has  not  come  when  he  can  dispense  with 
learning  about  the  progression  of  common  chords  and  the 
use  of  the  Dominant-seventh ;  and,  if  we  value  the  impor- 
tance of  his  perceiving  those  more  "  delicate  impressions  and 
distinctions  "  of  which  I  have  already  spoken,  it  will  still  be 
necessary  to  place  a  certain  curb  upon  his  propensity  —  due 
to  original  sin,  no  doubt  —  to  write  consecutive  fifths  and 
octaves,  even  although  they  are  common  enough  to-day 
to  make  one  think  that  the  next  genius  will  «Rules» 
be  he  who  has  the  daring  to  "  keep  the 
rules !  "  Of  course,  composers  for  generations  past  have 
written  consecutive  fifths  when  they  wanted  them,  and  the 
varying  degree  of  success  of  such  proceedings  has  depended 


68        THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD 

upon  the  measure  with  which  their    result,    aesthetically, 
has  justified  the  means.     But,  as  Mr.  F.  Corder  aptly  says : 

"The  rule  against  consecutive  fifths,  like  all  others,  is  only  a 
convenient  generalization,  and  the  argument  is  simply  absurd 
that  because  any  generalization  we  make  is  sometimes  broken, 
therefore  it  would  be  better  to  have  no  rules  at  all.  In  the  same 
way,  one  might  say  that  because  English  grammar  has  numerous 
exceptions,  therefore  grammar  is  useless." 

If  the  teacher  shows  his  pupil  that  all  such  "  rules  "  are 
merely  "  convenient  generalizations,"  and  not  items  in  a 
musical  Decalogue,  everything  falls  into  place,  and  they 
will  be  seen  to  be,  not  hindrances,  but  merely  friendly  guide- 
posts  to  help  him  along  an  untrodden  path,  until  such  time  as 
his  ear  and  artistic  sense  of  fitness  shall  enable  him  to  use 
his  own  judgment  with  security. 

But  the  pursuance  of  this  topic  further  would  lead  me 
into  a  discussion  of  the  more  thorough  and  formal  study  of 
Harmony  necessary  for  the  specialized  student,  and  upon 
this  (seeing  that  we  are  dealing  solely  with  the  musical 
education  of  the  child)  I  cannot  enlarge  here  and  now. 

Every  effort  should  be  made  to  connect  the  young  pupil's 

Harmony   work  with  his  attempts  at  melodic  invention. 

This  can  be  done  with  comparative  ease ; 

The  connecting       even  if  he  gets  no  further  than  being  able  to 

^ih  tiie  Pu  il's  play  and  Wlite  the  cadences  to  the  little 
creative  efforts'*  tunes  he  has  imagined,  the  connection  will 
have  been  set  up,  and,  in  all  probability, 
the  matter  will  not  end  there,  but  lead  to  something  more 
extensive  and  important  in  the  time  to  come.  It  may  be 
urged  that,  under  the  ordinary  conditions  prevailing  in  the 
case  of  school-pupils,  this  kind  of  inventive  work  is  not 
possible ;  the  answer  to  this  is  that  such  work  is  now  being 
carried  out  successfully  in  many  schools,  to  my  own  personal 
knowledge,  and  I  have  already  quoted  the  opinions  of  one 
headmistress  on  the  subject.  The  qualification  must,  of 
course,  be  made  that,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  such  work, 
of  necessity,  must  be  of  a  very  simple  character ;  and  above 
all  things  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  whole  aim  — 
as  I  have  already  said  —  is  not  to  produce  a  race  of  composers, 
but  simply  to  awaken  and  render  more  alert  the  musical 
perception  of  the  pupil,  by  making  use  of  that  natural, 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD       69 

inherent  desire  to  "make  something,"  which  is  the  preroga- 
tive of  every  healthy  and  ordinarily  intelligent  child.1 

1  When  the  above  remarks  upon  the  cultivation  of  the  creative  faculty 
in  the  child  were  first  delivered  in  lecture-form,  they  were  most  ably  and 
effectively  illustrated  by  a  number  of  boys  and  girls  from  the  Royal 
Normal  College  for  the  Blind,  by  permission  of  the  Principal,  Mr.  Guy 
M.  Campbell,  F.R.G.S.  The  various  items  of  the  program  are  set  forth 
below : 

1.  (a)  Improvising  vocal  "answers"  to  given  phrases. 
(6)   Playing  extempore  "answers"  to  given  phrases. 

(c)   Invention  of  a  four-line  musical  stanza  by  four  boys,  each  con- 
tributing one  phrase  capable  of  being  carried  on  by  the  next. 

2.  (a)  Playing  an  eight-bar  sentence  from  memory  (dictated  by  the 

teacher),  and  the  insertion  of  Imperfect  and  Perfect  Ca- 
dences therein. 

(6)  Harmonizing  at  the  piano  a  four-phrase  melody  dictated  by 
the  teacher. 

Playing  "  phrase- wise  "  a  succession  of  specified  harmonies. 

Aural  analysis  of  a  passage  of  harmony. 

3.  Invention  of  a  song  (melody  and  accompaniment)  to  a  four-line 

stanza  of  words  read  by  the  teacher.  (Four  boys  took  part 
in  this,  and  were  given  two  minutes  to  think  out  their  settings 
before  playing  them.  Each  one  played  and  sang  his  version 
of  Stevenson's  "Bed  in  Summer"  without  hesitation.) 

4.  Extemporizing  a  short  piano  piece  in  simple  Ternary  form. 

5.  Vocal  extemporization  by  three  girls  of  a  melody  in  Ternary  form, 

a  fourth  girl  harmonizing  the  cadences  at  the  piano. 

6.  Playing  an  improvised  accompaniment  to  a  previously  unheard 

song  of  some  considerable  difficulty,  dictated  twice  by  the 
teacher,  and  afterwards  sung  by  a  class  to  that  accompani- 
ment. 

7.  Examples  of  advanced  modulation  at  the  keyboard,  and  of  ex- 

temporization upon  given  themes,  by  the  elder  students. 


70       THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF   THE   CHILD 


III 

ANOTHER  department  of  musical  teaching,  intimately 
bound  up  with  those  that  have  already  been  considered  — 
one,  too,  that  is  (or  can  be)  of  extreme  value, 
particularly  in  school-life,  as  a  means  of 
extending  and  deepening  an  appreciation  of 
the  more  worthy  things  in  art  —  is  that  of  choral  singing. 
For  some  years  past  the  choral-class  has  existed,  at  least 
in  name,  in  most  of  our  upper  and  middle-class  schools; 
it  has  been  impressively  set  forth  in  school  prospectuses 
(sometimes  as  an  "  extra  "  for  which  a  special  fee  has  been 
payable) ;  but  it  is  true,  I  think,  to  say  that  it  has  not 
always  been  the  great  success  that  might  have  been  hoped 
for.  Its  educational  value  has  frequently  been  almost 
nil,  and  its  use  has  degenerated  into  a  forced  service  at  some 
school  function,  such  as  a  "  breaking-up,"  or  at  some  local 
bazaar,  in  order  to  add  to  the  prevailing  joyfulness  of  the 
occasion !  Its  place  in  the  educational  scheme  has  too  sel- 
dom been  realized ;  at  times  it  has  been  given  over  to  the 
tender  mercies  of  a  (doubtless  admirable) 
failure^  piano-teacher  who  understood  next-door- 

to-nothing  of  its  direction  and  its  possi- 
bilities, and  frequently  the  whole  thing  has  resulted  in  a 
mechanical  "  drumming  "  of  the  music  into  the  ears  of  girls 
or  boys  who  could  not  read  half-a-dozen  notes  either  from 
the  staff,  or  in  Sol-fa,  by  means  of  what  one  might  call 
"  brute  force."  One  or  two  members  of  the  class  could 
possibly  read  a  little,  and  all  the  rest  leaned  and  lolled  upon 
them  in  a  spirit  of  helplessness  and  hopelessness  ! 

Now,  in  this  matter  of  school  class-singing  the  Elementary 
schools  have  been  much  ahead  of  other  schools.     Of  course 
there  are  exceptions,  but  in  most  cases  class- 

s^g^g  has  been>  and  is>  a  department  of 
work  to  which  much  attention  has  been 
given  in  these  Elementary  schools,  and  in  a  few  instances  it 
has  reached  a  standard  of  purity  of  tone,  clearness  of  diction, 
and  beauty  of  expression  that  cannot  easily  be  surpassed. 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD       71 

And  the  surprising  part  of  it  all  is  —  as  has  been  shown  at 
some  of  the  Competition  Festivals  held  in  various  parts  of 
the  country  —  that  many  of  these  classes  have  been  trained, 
not  by  professed  musicians,  but  by  men  and  women  who, 
during  the  rest  of  the  week,  have  been  teaching  history, 
arithmetic,  or  what  not,  but  who  have  studied  the  require- 
ments of  singing-class  direction,  and  have  had  the  personality 
necessary  to  dominate  and  hold  their  children.  I  have  seen 
and  heard  such  classes,  and  the  significant  point  is  that  the 
children  love  their  work;  they  respond  to  the  music;  it 
grips  them;  for  the  time  being  they  are  living  in  a  world 
different  from  that  in  which  their  ordinary  lot  is  cast,  and 
the  effect  on  character  and  mental  outlook  is  one  that  can- 
not be  ignored  by  any  impartial  judge  of  such  matters. 

What,  then,  are  the  advantages  that  may  be  claimed  for 
the  well-managed  singing-class?  They  are  many;  I  will 
merely  mention  those  that  are  the  most 
outstanding.  First,  there  is  that  of  bring- 
ing  the  pupils  into  communion  with  much  choral-class 
pure  and  beautiful  music,  such  as  is  repre- 
sented by  the  national  tunes  and  folk-songs  of  our  own 
land  and  of  other  lands  —  a  priceless  heritage  —  and  also 
the  many  two-part  and  three-part  songs  written  by  past 
and  present  composers,  the  study  of  which  is  a  real  education 
in  music. 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  the  teacher  needs  to  exercise 
great  care  and  judgment  in  the  choice  of  his  material,  for 
it  is  an  unfortunate  fact  that  very  many  inferior  writers 
are  in  the  habit  of  turning  out  hundreds  of  silly,  worthless 
things  which  are  not  only  of  no  value  as  an  uplift  of  the 
children's  taste,  but  are  a  positive  degradation  of  it.     But, 
given  that  exercise  of  judgment  of  which  I  have  spoken, 
the  school  singing-class  may  become  in  a  very  special  sense 
a  kind  of  "  Appreciation  Class,"  whose  importance  cannot 
well  be  over-rated.     As  a  thoughtful  North 
of  England  teacher  has  said,  we  can  by  its  T*16  Choral-class 
means  "  teach  our  children  to  love  the  best  "/^|JJ  S 
music  for  its  own  sake,  to  sing  with  simple,  appreciation 
natural  expression  .  .  .  and  we  can  send 
them  away  from  our  schools  with  something  that  is  really 
an  education  in  the  truest  sense  of  the  word,  a  bringing  forth 
of  the  best  that  is  in  them,  both  of  heart  and  of  voice." 


72        THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD 

Secondly,  that  most  essential  matter  of  fluent  singing  at 

sight,  the  foundation  of  so  much  that  intimately  concerns 

.  the  musical  advancement  of  the  pupil,  has 

sight  kere  an  opportunity  of  being  brought  into 

play,  and  it  need  hardly  be  said  that  progress 

in  any  department  of  musical  work  must  be  correspondingly 

slow  and  unintelligent  where  the  sight-reading  ability  is 

weak  and  insufficient.1 

Thirdly,  the  singing-class  has  a  very  distinct  value  in 
the  physical  development  of  the  child,  for  when  it  is  con- 
ducted on  right  lines  he  has  the  chance  of 
The  health-  learning  the  art  of  correct  breathing,  the 

giving  influence       .  <?       i  •  1  1      1 , 1      •      i    • 

*f  tng  importance   of   which   to   health   is   being 

Choral-class  increasingly  recognized  at  the  present  day. 

Indeed,  many  medical  authorities  consider 
that  there  are  not  a  few  ailments  which  may  be  checked, 
if  not  cured,  by  its  means. 

Finally,  as  one  has  said  in  "  Some  Aims  in  Modern  Musical 
Education,"  such  a  class  is  a  most  powerful  lever  —  given 

the  right  teacher  —  "  not  only  in  the  foster- 
moral  value  *ng  °f  rhythmic,  corporate  action,  but  in  the 

formation  of  character.  Its  influence  is  in 
some  degree  comparable  to  that  of  the  playing-field  in  that, 
while  personality  counts,  it  demands,  at  the  same  time, 
subordination  to  discipline  in  the  working-out  of  a  common 
purpose  and  a  common  ideal.  In  this  it  is  truly  demo- 
cratic, in  the  best  sense  of  that  much  used,  and  much  abused, 
word." 

1  While  making  the  above  assertion  with  the  greatest  possible 
emphasis,  it  is  necessary  to  remind  the  inexperienced  teacher  that, 
especially  in  the  case  of  the  younger  children,  it  would  be  the  greatest 
mistake  to  limit  the  choice  of  songs  to  those  they  could  read  easily 
at  sight.  Some  of  the  songs  that  are  quite  easy  to  sing,  and  well 
within  the  comprehension  of  the  youngest  child,  are  quite  difficult 
so  far  as  their  notation  is  concerned.  So  it  is  important  to  remember 
that,  at  that  early  stage,  what  is  known  as  Rote-singing  must  play  a 
considerable  part.  There  is  no  harm  in  this  at  all,  provided  that  the 
teacher  has  at  the  back  of  his  mind  all  the  time  the  paramount  necessity 
of  constant  endeavor  to  bring  the  standard  of  his  pupils'  sight- 
reading  up  to  that  point  where  it  will  be  a  real  and  ever  increasing 
means  of  grasping  readily  and  accurately  the  relation  between  sound 
and  symbol,  a  power  which  is  at  the  root  of  all  progress. 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD       73 


IV 

WHEN  we  come  to  sum  up  the  responsibilities  of  the  music- 
teacher  of  to-day,  the  fact  strikes  us  very  forcibly  that 
they  are  undoubtedly  great,  and  I  think  that 
the  first  duty  of  any  student  of  music,  who  The  Music- 
contemplates  following  the  teacher's  career,   ^unifications 
is  to  consider  most  seriously,  his  qualifica- 
tions for  his  task.     Too  often  he  has  imagined  that  all  that 
is  required  to  enable  him  to  become  a  teacher  is  the  posses- 
sion of  a  respectable  degree  of  technical  skill  as  a  player  or 
a  singer,  plus  a  certain  amount  of  natural  musicality.     That, 
he  has  thought,  is  "  stock-in-trade  "  sufficient,  for  all  pur- 
poses, and  he  has  sallied  forth  to  his  teaching  duties  with 
that  airy  confidence  which  would  not  be  devoid  of  humor 
were  it  not  so  serious,  and  often  so  disastrous,  in  its  results. 
Now,  there  is  a  certain  sense  in  which  the  difficulty  of  teach- 
ing is  sometimes  the  greater  when  it  is  taken  in  hand  by 
the  highly  gifted  player,  singer  or  composer ;  it  costs  him 
more  effort  to  realize  the  pupil's  limitations  and  deficiencies, 
and  thus  it  is  that,  not  infrequently,  the  great  concert-artist 
is  by  no  means  the  best  teacher.     He  often  lacks  (a)  the 
experience,  in  his  own  case,  of  past  difficulties  comparable 
in  any  sense  with  those  of  his  pupil,  (b)  the  analytic  power 
that  enables  a  teacher  to  probe  the  causes  of  failure,  to  see 
into  the  mind  of  the  pupil,  and  to  understand  its  working. 
I  would  not  have  it  inferred  from  this  that  the  highly  gifted 
musician  may  permit  himself  to  regard  the  career  of  the 
teacher  with  a  supreme  and  lofty  unconcern,  as  something 
beneath  the  notice  of  his  artistic  temperament,  or  to  harbor 
in  his  mind  the  no  less  erroneous  idea  that,  in  order  to  educate 
others,  it  is  not  necessary  that  one's  own 
musical  attainments  should  be  more  than  —  thorough^  ' 
well,  respectable!     The  teacher,  more  and  Musicianship 
more,  is  being  regarded  as  a  person  of  vital 
importance  to  the  community,  and  in  order  that  we  may  be 
enabled  to  raise  the  whole  status  of  this  branch  of   our 


74       THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD 

profession,  it  is  imperative  that  its  members  shall  be  fully 
equipped  musicians,  alert  and  sensitive  to  music  themselves, 
and  sufficiently  educated  apart  from  their  music  to  hold 
their  own  with  the  teachers  of  other  subjects  in  the  field 
of  human  activity.  Therefore,  we  need  the  best  men, 
the  best  women,  in  the  teaching  profession ;  not  the  weak- 
lings, not  the  failures  or  the  broken-down  performers,  or 
those  who  think  they  will  "  teach  music  "  because  they  can- 
not get  a  living  in  any  other  way  ! 

The  next  point  for  us  to  see,  is  that,  during  the  earlier 
part  of  his  student-life,  the  work  of  the  would-be  executive 
artist  and  that  of  the  would-be  teacher  must  run  along 
parallel  lines,  and  present  the  same  external  features.  Both 
will  be  learning  the  technique  of  their  art,  gaining  all  that  is 
implied  in  the  word  Musicianship,  and  steeping  themselves 
in  an  atmosphere  of  musical  activity  and  comradeship. 
And  here  I  feel  constrained  to  warn  every  music-student 

TT     .  that    one    of    the    greatest    evils    to    be 

Unwise  early  f       ,  .  .  .,     .         ,  . 

specialization  fought  against  dunng  his  student  days 
is  that  of  a  too  early  specialization 
upon  any  one  subject  —  be  if  piano-playing,  singing  or 
anything  else.  Such  undue  specialization  inevitably  tends 
to  produce  narrowness  of  vision,  one-sidedness  and  prejudice, 
and  a  painful  lack  of  clear  judgment  which  usually  manifests 
itself  in  the  inability  to  view  things  in  any  kind  of  true  pro- 
portion. Let  me  guard  against  any  misconception ;  I  am 
not,  of  course,  speaking  against  specialization  as  it  is  seen  in 
the  case  of  the  prominent  specialist-teachers  of  the  day. 
Such  men  have  reached  their  present  position  by  a  kind  of 
natural  evolution ;  as  a  rule  they  are  men  whose  general 
musicianship  has  been  cared  for  sedulously  in  the  past,  whose 
knowledge  and  sympathies  are  wide  and  extensive,  but  whose 
notable  powers  in  one  particular  sphere  have  earned  for 
them  a  reputation  which  demands  that  the  whole  of  their 
time  and  energy,  in  a  professional  sense,  shall  be  directed 
into  that  one  channel.  By  this  means  they  are  enabled 
to  penetrate  more  deeply  into  the  technicalities  and  subtle- 
ties of  the  particular  branch  of  the  art  which  they  profess, 
to  the  enrichment  of  that  art  and  the  great  benefit  of  the 
community.  But  the  point  is  that  they  have  built  upon 
a  firm  foundation ;  they  are  musicians  first,  specialists 
afterwards.  Between  the  case  of  such  men  and  that  of 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD       75 

those  students  —  unfortunately,  by  no  means  rare  — 
who  habitually  neglect  the  broader  aspects  of  musician- 
ship and  general  culture  in  order  to  give  their  whole 
time  to  one  subject,  whatever  that  may  be,  there  is  a  great 
gulf  fixed. 

But  during  the  period  of  preparation  there  must,  sooner  or 
later,  come  a  time  —  and  it  is  usually  sooner  than  most  people 
care  to  trouble  themselves  about  —  when 
the  student  must  decide  in  his  own  mind  of  t 
what  his  life-work  is  to  be ;  is  it  to  be  the 
platform,  or  is  it  to  be  the  class-room?  Now,  it  is  a  fact 
that,  as  was  stated  in  an  article  in  the  Times  Educational 
Supplement : 

"The  majority  of  students  enter  their  colleges  with  the  belief 
that  they  are  going  to  do  anything  but  teach.  They  are  going  to 
sing  in  opera  or  oratorio,  become  cathedral  organists,  or  play  the 
piano  or  the  violin  to  admiring  audiences  in  every  capital  from 
Petrograd  to  New  York.  It  is  only  during  their  college  careers, 
or  after  that  career  is  over,1  that  they  discover  that  they  are  going 
to  spend  .  .  .  [their]  existence  in  teaching." 

Now,  at  a  certain  point  in  the  education  of  the  music 
student,  the  path  which  he  and  his  fellows  have  alike  been 
following  must  bifurcate,  and  the  future  training  necessary 
for  the  executive  artist  must  differ  somewhat  materially 
from  that  necessary  for  the  teacher.  The  concert- 
player,  for  example,  need  not  set  himself  to  study  educational 
principles  as  must  the  would-be  teacher,  and  it  is  not  of 
the  same  urgency  that  the  latter  shall  spend  all  those  many 
laborious  hours  in  conquering  technical  difficulties  which 
must  fall  to  the  lot  of  the  aspirant  for  platform  success. 

We  hear  to-day,  on  all  sides,  much  talk  and  much  discus- 
sion about  the  training  of  teachers ;   there  has  been  during 
the  last  few  years  a  great  awakening  of  the        .  .       . 
social  consciousness  to  the  fact  that  it  may  xeachefs° 
be  desirable  that  a  teacher,  of  whatever 
subject,  should  be  able  to  give  some  palpable  evidence  of 
fitness  for  his  task,  and  all  through  the  educational  world 
at  the  present  time  this  one  topic  holds  the  field.     The  Secre- 
tary of  the  Teachers'  Registration  Council,  speaking  at  an 
educational  conference  recently,  said : 

1  The  italics  are  the  Author's. 


76       THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD 

"It  was  often  stated  that  the  teacher  is  born,  not  made,  but 
this  probably  meant  that  he  was  greatly  helped  by  certain  quali- 
ties of  personality  which  enabled  him  to  get  work  out  of  his  pupils 
and  to  keep  them  in  order.  Given  these,  it  still  remained  neces- 
sary for  him  to  have  a  knowledge  of  the  principles  of  teaching 
and  acquaintance  with  child  nature.  The  born  musician  was  not 
necessarily  a  good  teacher,  because  his  mind  was  devoted  to  an 
art  other  than  the  art  of  teaching." 


Now,  the  lack  of  a  training  in  teaching  shows  itself  most 
acutely  and  disastrously  in  the  region  of  class-work.  Over 
f  and  over  again,  both  in  the  Choral-class  and 

in  the  Aural  training  class,  many  an  other- 
wise sound  musician  has  proved  a  complete 
failure,  or  at  best  compares  very  unfavorably  with  those 
who  deal  with  subjects  other  than  that  of  music.  This  is 
one  very  real  difficulty  in  connection  with  the  securing  of 
the  right  kind  of  teachers  for  certain  types  of  school  appoint- 
ments. Times  out  of  number  it  is  found  that  a  candidate 
for  a  school  post  is  a  good  player,  and  knows  the  technique 
of  piano  teaching  fairly  well,  but  is  entirely  incapable  of 
class-management;  another  has  the  requisite  training  and 
personality  for  class-work,  but  is  hopelessly  unmusical ; 
yet  another  can  deal  with  the  voice-production  side  of  the 
singing-class,  but  knows  nothing  of  ear-training  —  and  so 
on.  It  is  obviously  impossible  for  our  schools,  at  any  rate 
the  majority  of  them,  to  engage  specialists  in  all  these 
branches,  so  we  have  here  a  very  pressing  problem  waiting 
to  be  solved. 

It  is  clear,  then,  that  the  kind  of  teacher  increasingly 
demanded  on  all  sides  to-day  is  one  who  unites  to  real 
musicianly  qualities  the  ability  to  teach,  which  in  its  turn 
connotes  both  the  knowledge  derived  from  a  training  in  the 
teaching  art,  and  also  the  possession  of  that  indefinable  force 
P  alitv  we  ca^  Personality-  A  candidate  in  a  re- 

cent examination  described  this  quality  as 
signifying  the  possession  of  "  patience,  charitableness  and 
all  other  similar  virtues ! "  Without  requiring  such  an 
extensive  array  of  moral  perfections  as  this,  I  think  we  must 
see  that  personality  means  power  —  the  power  to  attract, 
the  power  to  compel,  the  power  to  sympathize  and  the  power 
to  arouse  enthusiasm.  Without  this,  the  most  brilliant 
technical  achievements,  the  most  elaborate  training,  will 


THE  MUSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE   CHILD   ...77 

avail   but  little.     Given,   however,   its   possession   in   fair 
measure,  the  teacher,  if  he  add  the  requisite  degree  of  work- 
manlike efficiency,  may  go  forth  conquering  and  to  conquer. 
As  I  said  before,  we  need  the  best  men 
and  the  best  women  in  the  ranks  of  our   The  best  men 
music-teachers,     men     and     women     who   ^e^^ 
realize    the    importance    of    their    work,   Teachers 
and    are     prepared    to     give     themselves 
whole-heartedly  to  the  difficult,  the  trying,  yet  most  worth- 
while "task  of  helping  others  to  perceive  something,  at  least, 
of  the  beauties  which  perchance  have  been  revealed  to  them. 

To  every  aspirant  for  the  teacher's  office  I  would  say : 
Remember  that  your  pupil  will  not  feel  an  enthusiasm  you 
do  not  feel  yourself ;  that  you  have  to  develop  not  only  his 
powers  of  execution,  but  also  draw  out  his  capacities  of 
appreciation.  Do  not  make  him  a  mere  receptacle  for 
"  items  of  useful  knowledge,"  but  awaken  in  him  the  desire 
to  know,  help  him  to  use  his  own  initiative  by  calling  upon 
his  creative  and  constructive  faculties,  and  see  to  it  that 
your  great  aim  shall  be  to  make  him  musically  observant, 
not  merely  of  details  of  execution,  but  of  the  beauties  of  the 
music  itself,  its  art  and  its  workmanship,  as  his  growing 
powers  of  perception  admit. 

Remember,  also,  that  he  who  is  himself  too  proud  or  too 
busy  to  learn  is  not  fit  to  teach  ;  we  must,  to  use  the  striking 
expression  of  the  great  Archbishop  Temple,  feed  our  pupils 
from  "  an  ever-running  stream,"  and  keep  constantly  before 
us,  when  we  are  tempted  to  relax  our  efforts  and  fall  into  the 
deadly  apathy  of  routine,  the  thought  that  we  only  are  at 
our  best,  our  teaching  only  takes  on  its  most  inspiring  form, 
when  we  ourselves  have  seen  some  fresh  vision  of  beauty 
or  of  truth. 


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1  Treatise  on  Harmony,  Part  I                                                J.  ff.  Anger  1.25 

la  Treatise  on  Harmony,  Part  II                                                              "  1.25 

\b  Treatise  on  Harmony,  Part  III                                                          "  2.50 

\c  Key  to  Part  I,      Treatise  on  Harmony                                             "  1.25 

\d  Key  to  Part  II,    Treatise  on  Harmony                                            "  130 

2  The  Modern  Enharmonic  Scale                                                         "  .30 

3  Elementary  Theory  of  Music  and  Treatment  of  Chords       R.  Wuerst  -60 

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6  Exercises  in  Sight  Singing  (Solfeggio)                                   S.  W.  Cole  .50 

7  Exercises  for  Training  of  the  Boy's  Voice                           E.  Douglas  .60 

8  Position  and  Action  in  Singing                                              Ed.  J.  Myer  1.25 

9  Vocal  Reinforcement                                                                        "  1.50 

10  The  Renaissance  of  the  Vocal  Art  "1.25 

11  Elementary  Violin  Lessons                                                 E.  Gruenberg  1.50 

12  School  of  Trio  Playing.    (Two-voice  inventions,  with  a  third 

voice  added  and  arranged  for  Organ  by  Max  Reger  and 

Karl  Straube)                                                                       /.  S.  Bach  .75 

13  The  Organ  Accompaniment  of  the  Church  Service     H.  W.  Richards  1.50 

14  The  Plain-Song  Service                                                           E.  Douglas  1.00 

15  Practical  Harmony                                                             S.  Macpherson  2.25 
15fl  Appendix  to  Practical  Harmony  1.25 
15£  Questions  on  Harmony  .75 

16  Form  in  Music,  with  especial  reference  to  the  Designs 

of  Instrumental  Music  2.25 

17  The  Rudiments  of  Music                                                               **  .75 
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18  Practical  Counterpoint                                                                      "  2.50 

19  Music  and  its  Appreciation                                                            "  1.50 

20  The  Technique  of  the  Modern  Orchestra                        Ck.  M,  Widor  5.00 


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460 

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Reading  Exercises  on  Notes  G.  Farlane 

Reading  Exercises  on  Time 

Reading  Exercises  on  Phrasing 

Elements  of  Music,  Simply  Explained  Charles  Trew 

Handbook  of  Conducting  C.  Schroeder 

Catechism  of  the  Rudiments  of  Music  Henry  Farmer 

Organ  Playing:  Its  Technique  and  Expression  A.  Eaglefield  Hull 

The  Child's  First  Steps  in  Pianoforte  Playing  Tobias  Matthay 

The  Forearm-Rotation  Principle  in  Pianoforte  Playing 

Counterpoint:  Strict  and  Free 

How  to  Acquire  Ease  of  Voice  Production 

Living  Music 

Rhymes  on  the  Rules  of  Harmony. 


Ebenezer  Front 
Charles  Tree 
Herbert  Antdiffe 
Founded  on  Dr.  Prout's  Harmony 

C.  H.  C.  Knowles 

350  Exercises  in  Harmony,  Counterpoint  and  Modulation     S.  Macpherson 
Handbook  of  Violin  and  Viola  Playing  C.  Schroeder 

Handbook  of  Violoncello  Playing 
Instrumentation.     (Revised  and  Supplemented  by  Richard  Strauss) 

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Handbook  for  Singers  Norris  Croker 

Beethoven's  Pianoforte  Sonatas.     (Letters)  Carl  Reinecke 

Beethoven,  A  Critical  Biography  (ill.)  Vincent  d'Indy 

Studies  in  Phrasing  and  Form  S.  Macpherson 

Advice  to  Young  Musicians  R.  Schumann 

Sidelights  on  Harmony  Louis  B.  Front 

Harmonic  Analysis 
Time,  Rhythm  and  Expression 

The  Pianist's  Handbook :  Franklin  Peterson 

Part  I,  A  Theoretic  Companion  to  Practice 
Part  II,  A  Handbook  of  Musical  Form 

Analysis  of  Bach's  "48  Preludes  and  Fugues."    2  Books,      H.  Riemann  ea 
Catechism  of  Musical  Instruments.     (Guide  to  Instrumentation)      " 
Catechism  of  Orchestration 
Introduction  to  Playing  from  Score 

The  Voice  and  its  Control  Churchill  Sibley 

The  Tenor  Voice  and  its  Training  E.  Davidson  Palmer 

The  Boy's  Voice  at  the  Breaking  Period 


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55  A  Short  History  of  Music                                                          W.  S.  Rockstro  i.oo 

56  Life  of  Ethelbert  Nevin  (ill.)                                                  Vance  Thompson  2.00 

57  Studies  in  Musical  Interpretation                                              Tobias  Matthay  1.50 

58  A  Concise  Dictionary  of  Musical  Terms                                           F.  Niecks  1.25 

59  Introduction  to  the  Elements  of  Music  .50 

60  Modern  Instrumentation  for  String  Orchestra,  Military  and  Brass  Bands 

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61  Practical  Instrumentation.     Seven  Parts,  complete           Richard  Hofmann  10.00 
620           Part  I.     The  Strings                                                                          "  2.00 
626          Part  II.     The  Wood- Wind                                                          "  2.00 
62c          Part  III.  Strings  and  Wood- Wind  Combined                              "  1.25 
62d          Part  IV.   The  Horns                                                                       "  1.25 
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62/          Part  VI.     The  Trumpets,  Cornets,  Trombones,  Tubas  and  Instru- 
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63  The  Rightly-produced  Voice                                             E.  Davidson  Palmer  i.oo 

64  Pianist's  Manual                                                                                M.  Arnold  .50 

65  Catechism  of  Pianoforte  Playing                                                   H.  Riemann  i.oo 

66  An  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Theory.     (A  Sequel  to  the  "Elements 

of  Music")                                                                          Franklin  Peterson  .75 

67  The  Student's  Handbook  of  Musical  Knowledge                             "  .60 

68  Catechism  of  Music                                                                            "  i.oo 

69  The  Appreciative  Aspect  of  Music  Study                                 S.  Macpherson  .50 

70  Harmony,  its  Theory  and  Practice                                           Ebenezer  Prout  2.00 

71  Double  Counterpoint  and  Canon  2.50 

72  Harmony  Simplified  (also  published  in  German  and  French)      H.  Riemann  2.00 

73  Dictionary  of  Music  4.50 

74  Catechism  of  Musical  Aesthetics                                                            "  i.oo 

75  Musical  Biographies  of  Composers,   Classified  in    Centennial   Periods 

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76  A  Practical  Guide  to  Violin  Playing                                               H.  Wessely  1.25 

77  Summary  of  the  Principal  Rules  of  Strict  Counterpoint         S.  Macpherson  .25 

78  Common  Sense  and  Singing                                                       John  Kennedy  .60 

79  Practical  Elements  of  Thorough-Bass                                        W .  A.  Mozart  .75 

80  Wagner  and  the  Reform  of  the  Opera                                     E.  DannreutJier  2.00 


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82  Rudiments  of  Musical  Knowledge  C.  W.  Pearce 

83  Rudiments  of  Music  for  Choirs  and  Schools  Harvey  Lohr 
Manual  of  Sight  Singing  F.  J.  Sawyer 

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8ga  Harmony,  Diatonic  and  Chromatic  C.  Vincent 
89$  Key  to  Exercises  in  "  Harmony,  Diatonic  and  Chromatic  "  " 

90     Tonality  and  Roots  A .  /.  Greenish 

Students'  Counterpoint  C.  W.  Pearce 

Composers'  Counterpoint 
Form  in  Music  /•  Humfrey  Anger 


91 

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Scoring  for  an  Orchestra 

The  Reading  of  Music 

Combined  Rhythms 

Musical  Memory  and  its  Cultivation 

On  Organ  Playing 

Voice  Culture 

Hints  to  Singers 

300  Examination  Questions 

Score  Reading  in  the  Various  Clefs  (48  Fugues)  2  Vols. 

How  we  Hear  (A  Treatise  on  Sound) 

Vocal  Exercises  for  Choir  Boys 

Practical  Suggestions  for  Training  Choir  Boys 

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C.  W.  Pearce 

S.  Midgley 

Paul  Stoeving 


Choir  Training  based  on  Voice  Production 


A.  Madeley  Richardson 


The  Psalms,  their  Structure  and  Musical  Rendering 
Training  of  Men's  Voices 
Memorizing  Major  and  Minor  Scales 


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114  Rudiments  of  Vocal  Music  T.  L.  Southgate 

115  Vocal  Exercises  on  the  Old  Italian  System  E.  G.  White 

116  The  Brass  Band  and  how  to  Write  for  it  C.  Vincent 

117  A  History  of  Music  E.  Duncan 

118  Melodies  and  How  to  Harmonize  Them  " 

119  Key  to  'Melodies  and  How  to  Harmonize -Them'  " 

1 20  What  Music  is 

121  Plain-Song  and  Gregorian  Music 

122  Words  in  Singing 

123  Organ  Accompaniment  to  the  Psalms 

124  Dictionary  of  Organ  Stops 

125  Voice  Training  Exercises  and  Studies 

126  The  First  Principles  of  Voice  Production 

127  Practical  Points  for  Choral  Singers 

128  The  Organist's  Directory 

129  The  Indispensable  Theory  Book 

130  Graded  Score  Reading  (C  and  G  Clefs) 

131  Primer  of  Part-Singing,  2  Bks. 

132  A  Method  of  Teaching  Harmony,  2  Bks. 

133  A  Short  Treatise  on  Musical  Rhythm 

134  Modern  Academic  Counterpoint 

135  Musical  Appreciation,  3  pts. 

136  Choir  Training  in  Church  and  School  H.  E.  Watts 

137  The  Composer's  Vademecum  F.  Hejford  Cocking 

138  Elementary  Musical  Composition  in  10  Lessons  E.  Duncan 

139  The  Successful  Music  Teacher  H.  Antcliffe 

140  Harmonic  Thought :  Past  and  Present  C.  Macpherson 

141  How  Successfully  to  pass  Music  Examinations  H.  Antcliffe 

142  A  Cyclopaedic  Dictionary  of  Music  Ralph  Dunstan 

143  Elementary  Ear-Training  Fred  G.  Shinn 

Bk.  I.     Melodic 

Bk.  II.  Harmonic  and  Contrapuntal  Ear-Training 

144  300  Questions  on  the  Grammar  of  Music  J.  Simpson 

145  Practical  Hints  on  Technic  and  Touch  of  Piano  Playing  A.  Goodwin 

146  Popular  Handbook  of  Musical  Information  A.  Pochhammer 

147  The  Mechanics  of  Piano  Technic  E.  W.  Grabill 

148  Scales,  their  History,  Theory,  and  Fingering  on  the  Piano        E.  Brigham 

149  Ear-Tests,  and  How  to  Prepare  for  Them  O.  Daugtry 

150  Harmony  for  Amateurs  /.  Becker 


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